Our recent weather has been bad enough, as Londoners know,
even when the blinding fog has not made life a burthen; but at least we are free of the elemental convulsions which in America add such a terror to existence. On Wednesday, the 9th inst., a sharp fall of the thermometer occurred all over the Union, and was followed by a tornado which rushed from south-west to north-east, along a path 200 ft. wide, with the force of a flood of the same width. Houses, factories, and bridges fell instantly, as if they had been struck by gigantic shells. The extent of the damage done is as yet uncertain, because the telegraph-wires have been blown down; but the accounts from special localities suggest the extent of the calamity. In Reading, Pennsylvania, for example, the silk-mill, a solid building 350ft. long, 150 ft. wide, and four stories high, was struck in the centre and collapsed "like a house of cards," crushing at least eighty of the two hundred girls employed, and injuring a still greater number. The " painting-shop " attached to the great railway-station was literally blown away, and railway-carriages in motion were hurled off the track ; while at Pittsburg, a tall 4. mill," 80 ft. high, was reduced to ruins in a moment, fourteen of the hands being killed outright. The iron bridge, too, over the Falls at Niagara was blown out of its supports. It is believed that the destruction of villages along the path of the blast has been terrible, and the loss of life, even though the village buildings are wooden, will exceed that of many a battle. It is curious to notice that, as in the case of eruptions in volcanic countries, these recurrent tornadoes in America seem to produce no effect either upon architecture or men's minds. Nobody builds solidly ; and we see no evidence that the only adequate protection, the shelter of a hill in the usual direction of the wind, is at all desired.
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