The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-09-01
CHEMISTS STUDY DEADLY At
MOSPHERIc DEMONSTRA-
TON AT OWATONNA
DOOMED TRAIN BUSHES
INTO POWERFUL VACUUM
Local Meteorological Expert Explains
Phenomenon by Which Three Heavy
Cars Were Sucked Skyward From
Heart of Storm While the Loeomo-
tive Remained on Track.

Local scientists and students OF
meteorology the country over have
found a subject of absorbing interest
In the brief but terrific atmospheric
demonstration by which Chicago g.
North Western railroad train was lift
ed from the rails at 'Owatonna, Mimi,
Saturday evening, carried through the
air for twenty-five feet and deposited
in a ditch.
1t was q merely local cyclone which
did the work. 1t generated, unherald-
ed and through no recorded climatic
conditions which might be supposed to
have produced 1t, With incredible
rapidity the flend of the air was born
of earth. swept over It's path of death,
sucked skyWard it's chosen quarry and
then scared into the heavens, where
1t dispelled its spent forces harmlessly
among the clouds.
Rushes Into Vacuum.
Briefly, it is figured by the weather
experts, the train ran right into the
center of the storm-into the dread and
resiStless cyclonic Vacuum-When it's
pivotal point was directly over the
three coaches. The fact of the engine
remaining on the track may be &C
countable for in two ways-the upward
drawing force of the swirling cyclone
may not have been enough to lift the
steel monster, and 1t may have been
Just without the edge of the deadly
zone.
Another circumstance which may
have conduced to save the engine from
following the coaches in their aerial
flight Is the fact that 1t did not con-
tain the volume of heavy, confined
air that filled the coaches when they
We're surrounded by the vacuum.
Heavy Wind Is Not Responsible.
such a, demonstration of that of
Saturday Is not caused by heavy
Wind" said Expert oliver, of the St.
Paul weather bureau, yesterday. 1T
is done to the violent upward move
ment of the air, the cool air rushing in
causing the circular motion which
forms the vacuum in the center
THE velocity of the forward move
ment of the storm might be but fif-
teen or twenty miles an hour, and that
in the center of the cyclone might be
from sixty to seventy-five miles. The
exact power of such storm cannot be
measured nor gagged.
When cyclone strikes a building
the walls invariably fall outward. This
is due to the fact that inside a struc-
ture the dense air represents an aver
age pressure of about fifteen pounds
to the square inch, which, when sur
rounded by vacuum, rushes outward
the breaking OF all of the car windows
in that wreck before the cars landed
at the bottom of the embankment.
Comes Without Warning.
1.-THE storm was purely local, as
there We're no climatic conditions to
indicate the possibility of a general
cyclonic disturbance.
such movements of the air may be
confined to almost any area. / have
seen miniature cyclone in Texas
which would encircle a tree three feet
In diameter and uproot it.
They are caused by the UNEQUAL
heating of the atmosphere, which,
when unduly warm, starts upward I'M
IT, meeting with cooler air, the genera
ton of cyclone follows
Five years ago, in South Dakota, I
witnessed bundles of grain carried
skyward by a series of small cyclones
until the air was so full of them that
the scene looked like a shower of
feathers"