The Eureka sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1902-current, 1913-04-05

.rrt 81 ;ntv blackness. with lightning playing ABOUT ~ ~ 80"
vino with the speed of a buzz saw, it plows a pain = III
tears away the front of a gravel bank Win 'e ri'O ii. owav
Jet; scoops up the contents OF a pond !" III "'
creeks. sooHerinp
It demoHshes barns, haystacks, houses chureneS' 'o.la
,boir romnonts ove a souare mile Of territory; snatches up ca'"'
horses, sheep, and even men and women-someumeS 'D - %
to death, sometimes giving them a wild ride through "' 9"
set them down at last uninjured. = hnndred
The path of the tornado is from a hundred 10 sh nuH
ID Ia and tho ,anotb Of its course may vary from one IT TWO
mn 70 fftv mnes Almost invariably it moves toward the nor'he"''
with a speed of from 90 to so miles an hour. The cen'er' NO
the destructive power is the greatest, occupies o' :.
minutes in passing over a given point On account Oh 'e 'm - -
in the direction of the movement of tornadoes, 1t Is 0 "'u ="
get out of their track if they can be SEEM or neafu 0o""e
or a half hour in advance.
A single tornado may level a half dozen villages ana plough "
track of destruction across two or three counties. j.,
But when. as happened last week, a horde of these "twlsters
breaks upon the face of the land there is hardly any meteoroioS0"i
disaster so serious as that which they produce.
II have lust been looking at a series of charts prepared Dy inc
Government in it's studies of the great outbreak OF tornadoes Oh
February 10. 1884, to which the present one may be compared
and they resemble military maps OF an invaded country aoroSS
which a dozen armies arr marching on parallel lines.
From the Mississippi Valley across Kentucky, Tennessee MIS-
sissippi. Georgia. South Carolina and North Carolina the tomatoes
rushed side by side, new ones breaking out as the earlier ones were
dissipated, until their raid had almost reached the Atlantic ocean
Tornadoes ways occur in the southeastern quarter oil a cy-
clonic disturbance. Such a disturbance may be from a thousand to
IMO OuSdu uIIC0 DIthly lOAASAhh AOH-D
winds over most of its area, but in the southeastern quadrant where
warm southerly winds are brought into contact with cold winds
from the northwest, whirls are set up, as eddies appear at the edge
of conflicting currents of water, and these, if the contrasts OF tenn
perature are extreme, quickly develop into tornado tunnels.
In every case the direction of the whirl OF a tornado Is from
right to left, the same as that of all cyclonic winds in the northern
hemisphere. In the case of the general winds this is readily ex
planned as a result of the rotation of the earth on its axis. In the
southern hemisphere the winds turn from left to right. Some o
the performances of tornadoes seem Incredible. Occasionally the
Iub;l;no tronbo IL withdrawn toward the clonda skinuinp n threat
ened point, only to dart down again with vicious speed and re-
doubled power. Small objects, like loose nails, are driven into trees
or board fences. Victims sometimes have their clothing stripped
off and torn to shreds. On one occasion a cornstalk was driven
partly through a door, recalling the. experiment of shooting
candle through a board" A four-inch scantling, ten feet long, was
driven by tornado three and half feet into the ground.
Not infrequently there is a noticeable disturbance of the all
only a few hundred yards on either side of a tornado track within
which everything has been destroyed. Once in a while a house
the windows of which have been kept closed, has been burst out
ward like a she'll by the expansion of the enclosed air as the centra
vacuum of the tornado passed over it. Hail storms and tornadoes
frequently go together, and both are evidently the result of The
meeting of bodies, or currents of air Of sharply contrasted atmos
phere.
A Paris newspaper offered big prizes for the best nswer tn thu