Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1892-04-30
gradually gives way to one OF awe and
e,,bl;rpifu


sublimity.
There is something 80 terrific and APP
palling-you feel yourself so atomless
in comparison-that you would speak
in whispers If the roar could suddenly
ease. You are an onlooker; If assist
ing to work gun, physical activity
would take away from the mental
strain. When Admiral Porter got his
twenty mortar boats, each armed with
an 8L-ton mortar and thirty-pound
rifle cannon, at work against the forts
below New Orleans, and the big guns
in both forts had opened in reply, there
was something akin to the sound of
heaven and earth coming together.
The mortar shells weighed over two
hundred pounds apiece, and the rush
of them through the air made ones
hair feel as if it crawled. The venom
Gus hiss of a big slsyrocket was magni-
fed thousands of times, to be followed
by crash which seemed to split tho
sky open into cracks and crevices.
When the firing had continued until
all reports had been merged into one
steady roar there was little short of an
earthquake on land or sea for ten milea
around. The earth shook as If a great
steam hammer was pounding it few
yards from your feet. If standing near
a tree, you could feel the roots letting
go of the soil with sound like buga
crawling over dry leaves. On the water
great mud spots rose up here and there
to show where the earth forty feet be-
low had been disturbed. In the Missis"
sippi river itself hugh catfish leaped
above the surface in fright and pain OF
floated belly up and were carried along
with the current, gasping for breath,
Out on blue water air bubbles as large as
dining plates foated to the surface and
bursted with snap, and fish of all
kinds exhibited the greatest confusion
and alarm.
Thirty miles away the roar was like
that of gale sweeping over pine for
est. Horses and cattle sought to hide
away, birds flew about uttering cries OF
distress, and dogs pointed their nosea
toward the sky and howled dismally.
Birds and fowls felt the air and earth
waves long before human beings did.
and their actions were so queer as to
become alarming. The coming of the
roar to those afar off was preceded by
jarring of the earth and moaning
in the air. Springs overfowed, and the
water in wells circled around as in a
whirlpool. The widest species of birds
left the woods and thickets and camo
flying about the houses, and rabbits de-
serted their burrows and sought tho
companionship of domestic animals,
The thunder storms of score of year1
combined could not have rent the heav'
ems nor disturbed the solid earth as that
cannonade did.
If the beginning was painful and ex-
asperating the ending was something to
be remembered for its grandeur. One
mortar after another, one great gun
after another, was silenced by order.
The reverberations had travelled through
air and earth and water a distance ol
fifty miles. They now seemed to re
turn back to the guns. The rent and
riven skies had kept up constant
moaning and complaining. These
sounds gradually died away, as a mar
in pain finally drops off to sleep. Ths
earth resumed it's solidity again, the
sun shone forth in its old familiar way
and the bank of clouds piled up in the
west and tinged with gold all along
their lower edges seemed proof to the
eye that the world still stood as we had
lived in it the day before those monsters
awolle and demanded human blood an6
wreck and destruction as the price oi
their silence.-N. Y. Sun.