The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-22
.EQUINOXES AND STORMS IN AMERICA Record of Some Big Storms In
 This Country FREAKS OF TORNADOES In 1s43 Sixteen Inches of Water Fell In Franklin County, Pennsylvania, In Three Hours-Some Not
 able Cloudbursts.
FREAKS OF TORNADOES
BY FREDERIC j. HAsklN.

l hand to spring, hurls farewell blast at l Sol, just to serve notice that he will be l back again, and htes him away to the i southern hemisphere, unwilling to rule 1 jointly with the Queen of Verdure Spring 1 has come, just about fifty seconds ahead
 of time. She gets here little early l each year, and will continue to observe
 that trait which has been called the po- l liteness of kings, until the year 2120. Then l she will begin to arrive a little behind l time-hfty seconds each year for 13,OoO l years.
 l This constant change in the exact mo- ] ment when spring comes and winter goes, is due to sort of side-stepping upon the part of the earth. It makes the crossing of the equinoxial points move back fifty seconds each year, making 1 complete revolution 2b,o0o years. It l happens that the axis of the earth does not vigorously continue parallel to it. self, but varies from time to time, de- scribing an entire cone in the 2600O years. The northern extremity of the earths axis is now quite near the polestar, Polaris, and will continue to get nearer to that star until 2120, when 1t will point to within a half degree of Polaris. Then it will begin to recede, passing on by the Little Bear, and across the border of the Swan. If any of us are on earth 1900 years from 2120, we will see that
 
 After that, the return journey will be begun. From this 1t will be seen that while we pass around the sun each year, there Is also a stellar year for us which takes 26.000 solar years for its compile ton. The constant moving backward of the time of crossing the equinoxial points is known as the procession of the equi- noxes. It was first noted by Hipparchus of Alexandria two thousand years ago. 1t has since been explained by Laplace as due to graYitation.
 March has a worldwide reputation for its buster, and equinoxial storms are things of which children remember hear ing long before they were old enough to know exactly what was meant. Btu science has kept tab on the month and on the day and has cleared them both from the blackened reputation which they have borne. Even though February IS not so wealthy as March In number of days, she often manages to set pace for buster which her successor cannot keep. Science has also proved that other months often outdo this one of the evil reputation. But what ought we care if the month is blustery? Has it not passed into proyerb that every grain Of dust in March is worth a peck of gold at harvest time? Equinoxial storms do happen rath- CT too frequently for the comfort of those who sail the seas. but none of the great
 
 the yernal equinox, and but few of them have occurred around the one which comes ip the autumn.
 The average mortal cannot conceive the weight of the water that is drawn into the skies by the process of evaporation, only to be iet down again. If the average rainfall over the earth could be put at thirty inches, 1t would mean that for every square mile of the earth's surface there annually falls nearly 500, 0o0,000 gal Ions of water, the total weight of which would be in the neighborhood of 2,500.000 tons. The area of the whole earth is placed at approximatel 900 square miles. The annual work of the sun in drawing up water and letting 1t down again would thus amount to the enormous task of lifting uve hundred trillion tons. And after doing all this the sun finds time to amuse itself by supplying us with a reasonable amount of heat and light. The amount of rain that may fall in single day is also beyond conception. In 1843 ther fell in Franklin county, Penn sylvania, in three hours, sixteen Inches of water. That was approximately hun dred pounds of water to every square foot. It was the biggest rainfall ever recorded in this country.
 Cloudbursts have frequently occurred in this country, and many of them have been highly destructive. Up in the noun tdluS Ol flTBlnla dDOuL SlAlecH IllleS WeSt of Harrisonburg, on what is known as Dickson's Ridge, one may yet see the effect of a heavy cloudburst. The whole side of a mountain was torn out by the tremendous force of the descending water. Though the mountain has slope of some eighty degrees, the downpour was so great that it cut a channel some thirty feet deep and a hundred feet wide out of its side, and boulders weighing hun dreds of tons were carired down the stream which flows at the mountains base as if they had been feathers before a hurricane
 Trees that had stood the storms and blasts of a century were cut off as pipe stems, and even beyond the zone of great est downfall, where 1t was not severe enough to plough out the mountainside. one could see where the water had regis tered a ten-foot mara on the trees. Sev- eral miles away in the Interstate road from Rockingham county. Virginia, to Pendleton county, West Virginia, and where the stream from Dfcksons Ridge. crosses this road, one may still behold thousands of stones, many of them as big as a bushel measure, carried down by the unclaimed waters. The remote l ness of the scene of the cloudburst from human habitation makes 1t seldom visited. but those who do visit 1t describe 1t IS a most wonderful illustration of the pow CT or IalllnS water
 The word blizzard is of comparative origin, so far as the United States Is concerned. In December, 1873, there was a notable cold wave. The weather bu- reau wanted name for it. The mem bers ransacked their dictionaries for a term and finally fell back upon the word blizzard" which, like the storm, came out of the west. They applied 1t to that cold wave, and the term has never lost
 it's popularity. The hardest wind that ever blew in the United States beat around Mt. Washington in 1878. For one and half hours it blew at the rate of 1S6 miles an hour. When wind is blowing at the rate of hundred miles an hour the pressure it makes is nearly fifty pounds to the square foot. wind blowing fifty miles an hour registers only 12.3 pounds
 The greatest series of tornadoes the world has ever seen occurred on Feb ruary g, 1884, in the territory extend ing east from Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois to the Atlantic. There were more than 60 different tor nadoes, and they destroyed over 10000 buildings, killed 800 people and wounded 25O0 more. The destruction of property by tornadoes from 1890 to 1898 amount ed to over $26, ,000000 and there were some 15O0 lives lost during that period. The most telling blow the United States has ever received from storms was the one which deluged Galveston, Tex, September 8, 1900. in which 1000 people lost their lives and $30. .000, 900 worth of property was