That a storm of such magnitude and fury should have swept through the heart of a city of 200,000 people, to destroy outright no more than five or six score lives, may excite our wonder. The most obvious reason of the low mortality will be found in the hour and place of the principal visitation. The place was the business part of the city, and the hour between eight and nine P.M., when the wholesale houses and the streets in their vicinity were comparatively deserted. Another fact is also to be noted. The cyclone seems to have reached the ground scarcely at any point at all. Its principal fury was probably expended in the region above the housetops. The roofs and tops of walls were removed; the damage below resulted principally from their fall. Humbler buildings sheltering human lives were sometimes crushed by the fall of the upper portion of the wall of some contiguous building; as notably, in the case of the house occupied by the laundry girls, and which was smashed by the fall of the wall from the top story of the Louisville Hotel; or the case of a colored family whose house was crushed by the wall of the Falls City Hall. But in any case of cyclonic visitation [Illustration: CORNER MAIN AND CLINTON STREETS, LOUISVILLE.] the escapes will probably amaze us more than the deaths; for when it will seem that nothing living could have escaped, the majority will not only probably be found alive, but absolutely unhurt. Of numerous cases, a few specimens will suffice: Peter Speth and family were seated in the parlor when the cyclone arrived. The family huddled together in the hall, doubtless to avail themselves of the protection of the side walls not far apart. The walls of the second story fell in with a crash. The building and furniture were destroyed, but the family escaped without injury. Eleven men were in a barber shop at 1803 Broadway. The roof was blown off; the walls fell in, but all the men escaped through the windows without a scratch. At 329 Eleventh street, on the upper floor of a two-story brick, a lady lay at the point of death; watched by her son and daughter. She begged them to flee for their lives, but they refused to forsake her. The roof was stripped clean off, but the devoted children with their mother escaped injury. In one cottage on Chapel street dwelt a family of five. At once all were in the house, when the storm demolished it, and four escaped unhurt. Major Galt, of the Louisville and Nashville Road, lived in a two-story brick. He apprehended no danger till the walls fell. His wife was buried under a pile of bricks. Her husband with difficulty extricated her, and carried her unconscious to the house of a neighbor. Save for the shock, she was not seriously hurt.