The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1913-09-18
WHERE CYCLONES ARE BORN.
Cradle of the American Tornado is
Located at Yuma, Arizona.

Science has at last placed its finger
upon the exact birthplace of the cy-
clones, which from time to time work
devastation through the west. Ac-
cording to DR.. Emil Schildenkrantz,
an eminent German meteorologist,
who has been visiting this country,
the cradle of the cyclone lies in the
town of Yuma, Ariz. There is born
and nurtured the whirling tornado
the deadliest type of destructive
winds, veritable dancing dervish o.
the gales.
Yuma lies one hundred and thirty
eight miles east Of Denver, in the
foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
It's altitude is 4,100 feet.
1t is generally agreed among the
Weather experts that the destructive
whirling winds are caused by fun
nel-shaped cloud, thot whirlc about
with tremendous force in the man
ner of a summer resort merry-go-
round.
AS soon as the vacuum forms, the
air rushes in to fill it, because, as
the text books say, nature abhors
vacuum. The air is then apt to
swirl about in circle or spiral,
which results in a twisting wind, or
cyclone.
Bearing these things in mind, DR..
Schildenkrantz determined to locate
the spot where natural conditions
made the formation Of vacuums most
likely. He studied the trail of the re-
cent cyclone that swept through
North Kansas and expended its chief
fury on the city of Omaha, and fol-
lowed it in it's mysterious beginning
in Colorado, He was not satisfied
until he came to Yuma, the little
town on the eastern slope of the
Great Divide.
Careful study of the environment
of this town soon convinced the
scientist that his task was completed
he had found the cradle of the
cyclone.
DR.. Schildenkrantz gives two rea-
sons for his contention that Yuma
was the birthplace of the recent cy-
clone, and was probably responsible
for many previous ones.
In the first place, he observed that
the climate had sharp alterations of
heat and cold. This is but one condi-
ton making directly for the creation
OF vacuums in the air. The days are
intensely warm in summer. Last
month, for instance, the thermome-
ter climbed several times to 10S de-
grees. Yet the nights were always
COOL Sometimes they were so cold
that the townspeople found it neces-
sary to close the doors and windows
and to build fires in the stoves and
freplaces.
In the second place, the soil at
Yuma is covered with the short,
crisp, curling grass named after the
buffalo, because it resembles the hair
of his coat. Like the buffalo, buffalo
grass is becoming extinct, but in and
about Yuma it still grows in profuse
quantities. This grass, curling close
to the earth, the scientist AYERS, re-
fleets the heat more strongly than
any other natural medium. DR.. Schil-
denkrantz says the dreaded paving
stones OF the city streets have only
half the reflective power of this close
ly curling grass. A walk about the
prairies covered with it will confirm
this theory, for it filings back the
heat so strongly that it causes the
face to become sun-burned even on
cloudy day. The grass, by forming a
blanket covering the earth, prevents
the absorption of the heat by the
earth. The burning suns rays that
would otherwise be absorbed in the
ground are flung back by the grass
into the air. twice heating it, and so
creating the vacuum that is the pre-
paration for cyclone.
During his visit there in weather
which the oldest citizens pronoun-
ced ordinary and moderate, he studi-
ed the air with his telescope and dis
tinctly saw through that magnify
ing medium the formation of three
tiny but unmistakably funnel-shaped
clouds.
Yuma itself, DR.. Schildenkrantz
says, is like a typhoid germ carrier,
of whom we have examples OCCASION
ally in a community. While diffus-
ing germs of tvphuS these persons