A TERRIBLE CYCLONE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1275, 6 August 1886, Page 4

A TERRIBLE CYCLONE.

The Chicago correspondent of the Auckland ‘ News’ writes, under date June 1 : Since last I wrote you from this city, we have been visited hy a sue cession of storms, the violence and terror of which have not been equalled within the momor} of man. It was prophesied by our local light, whose name has slipped me, that storms would arise on May 11, and continue, which they have done, during the entire month. Gales, tornadoes, cloud-bursts,

and floods have followed each other in such quick and ,desolating succession that there lias hardly been breathing time to look about between the acts. Nature has let loose the vials of her mighty wrath on the head of insignia ficant man in almost a retributive

fashion, as if in very punishment for

the sins of the world. On the sth xiadoes, traversing limited tracts of the country, and doing great damage to property, but killing only a few. On the 11th the Ist grand storm struck Kansas city, killing 30 people. The next day its terrible wrath was ex* pended on Illinois (this state) and In* diana, finally ending in a fearful cloudburst, which broke upon Xenia and other towns in South Ohio, killing 50 people, and damaging property to the amount of millions of dollars. An eye-witness, to whom I am indebted for a description, says of this last freak of the angry elements, that no pen could paint or words describe the horrors that occurred that night. The terrible rain and wind were supple merited by the most vivid lightning and reiterated thunder, which seemed to shake the whole earth beneath the feet of the terrified and agonised people. A small stream, which runs through the town, and into a culvert, became swollen with the rain, which came down as though a waterspout had burst overhead. The culvert became useless, and choked hy drifting wood, which came madly down with the rising waters, and presently a dam was formed by the overflowing waters. The embankment at last giving way, the mass of water rushed like a mighty monster through the town, roaring ana rolling with sullen violence, carrying trees, houses, and people along with it in its mad and unchecked course. The flood in a short time covered a surface of a mile square, being at some places 50ft deep. The night was dark as pitch, aud the frenzied people rushed wildly about in the horrible blackness, seeking some safety, and finding none. The shrieks of the drowning were heard high above the gale and roaring water, while bodies floated here and there among the debris of household goods. Largo bonfires were lighted, and men worked hard until the morning light. Whole families were swept away. Houses went down the troubled flood by the score. Every railroad leading out of the city was swept away, and the tele* graph wires were all down. Irr other p'aces the awful cyclone dealt destinetion unparalleled. Pences are torn np for miles aud miles, barns, sheds, houses, and even churches, levelled, telegraph poles blown down, fruit trees torn limb from limb, and the fields down in grain utterly obliterated, the surface soil being replaced by grave! and debris. In some places the storm cloud is described “as a black cloud \ shooting out of the sky, with a light’ beneath ” The land has been strewn with every kind of debris, and carcases of animals and poultry. Children were caught up by the whirlwind, and carried long distances ; women also, to be dashed to pieces. One lady, a friend of oue who told me, went up a hill to nave her dress fitted on, leaving her little bny with his grandmother in tho cottage below. Tho gentleman who t,ld me pa sed the dressmaker’s house, and saw the two women standing in the porch. Instantly up came the cyclone, which whirled the mother to the door of the eotfc-.se where her boy was, stone dead, leaving the dressmaker at the door unharmed. Annliter woman was carried an eighth of a

mile in the air and found dead A schoolhouse was blown down about the heads of the poor children, killing a large number. ■ Huge oaks are twisted right out of the ground, and have been carried away long distances. These awful visitations have all occurred in the night, and many of them ending in floods, which have drenched the gasworks, leaving the people in utter darkness. Without preparation the unhappy inhabitants have gone down to coming, as the storms have come, in the dead of the night, without warning, In one part of the State there have been no severe storms, though we have had close weather, with rain, thunder, and lightning in a modified degree. The air seems still charged with electricity, and the atmosphere is heavy and depressing; and the back of the storm is broken, 1 think, with, however, awful loss to man and beast.

The astronomers grappling with the subject found that the-sun was in a disturbed condition at the time. Spots on its surface appeared and disap* peared with strange rapidity. Flames darted from its surface, some of them tlrousands of miles long, and there were found “ two new spots” to have formed a little east of the meridian There was a thin haze at the time of obscuration, by the aid of which scarlet vapour could be seen rising from the disturbed region, and floating northward over the sun’s disc. One scarlet cloud was traced, a long way, the contrast of colours being very plain. The climate here is as capricious as the workings of a woman’s mind—hot one day, cold the next; just as variable as’j'San Francisco, in fact. But I hear ptbia is an excep» tionally erratic season. It is to be hoped ’tisjßot “ ever^thns.”