The tornado occasionally originates at sea and whirls up a heavy column of water for a few feet, which, meeting the dark funnel from above, presents the appearance of a pillar of water reaching the clouds. Not a few ignorant people once imagined that all rain originated from the water thus sucked up. These columns, or “water-spouts,” are generally a few feet in diameter, and may sometimes be broken by firing a cannon-ball through them. They are not ordinarily considered dangerous: but there are some exceptions, and it is not improbable that many a ship that left port, never to be heard of again, has been overwhelmed by some gigantic water-spout.
Of the most destructive tornadoes in the United States, Mississippi records the two leading ones. The first came on May 7, 1840, and Natchez was the principal sufferer, though other portions of Adams county were swept. The day began warm and cloudy, with the wind south, veering to east. At 2:15 P.M., the sky became a lurid yellow; the storm striking the river six or seven miles below the city, did not reach it until 2 P.M. The rush of the wind did not last five minutes, and the destructive blast only a few seconds. Houses were burst outward; three hundred and seventeen persons were killed in the city and on the river. Sheet tin was carried twenty miles, and windows thirty miles. One hundred and nine persons were badly injured, and property to the value of $1,260,000 destroyed. Most of the deaths resulted from drowning; two steamers and sixty flatboats were sunk, while the city was flooded with nine inches of rain. Enormous hail-stones fell. A desk fastened with three locks, was blown open by the explosive force of the expanding air within. Another curious freak of this expansive power occurred in a tornado at New Brunswick. A towel hanging on the wall was found apparently blown nearly through it. The expanding air had driven the towel in a large crevice which opened in the wall behind it; and the crevice closed as the storm passed on, holding the towel to puzzle the neighborhood.
The next great tornado visited Natchez, June 16, 1842, and killed five hundred people.
Next to these, in destruction of life, is the famous
WATER-SPOUT AT SEA.