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Show TORNADO ON TRIAL. They have a tornado on trial in the Circuit Court at Madison Wisconsin. A resident of Mineral Point sues an insurance company to recover on his house, which was destroyed in the frightful tornado of May, 1878. And to do this he must prove that lightning and not wind was the destructive agent. The testimony for the plaintiff states that a cloud was observed which approached with great rapidity. As it drew near it assumed a funnel or balloon shape, was of inky blackness, and whirled about violently. In this cloud were constant and vivid flashed of lightning, and a continuous and terrific roar of thunder proceeded from it. Some witnesses said they saw a ball of fire in the lower part of the cloud, and that lightning darted from it in every direction. One witness compared the fire-ball to the headlight of a locomotive approaching at full speed, and the noise to the roar of a long freight train, both indefinitely magnified. It was shown that part of the debris of the house was found on fire shortly after the tornado passed, and that the fire probably could not have come from any source in the house itself. A woman's face and a part of her hair were burned. Leaves and grass were withered as with a frost, and turned black; trees from eight to fourteen inches in diameter were denuded of all their bark, even to the ends of the smallest branches, trunks of trees were shattered into strings, and instantly dried of sap, pine shingles were driven into white oaks. Professors of the State University were called for the defence, and gave is as their belief that the destructive force of the tornado was wind.-N. Y. Tribune. |