These data suffice to show the peculiar acts of the tornado in our land. There is one case of a great storm attended by tornadoes on its southeast border, that is even more noteworthy than the great one so minutely detailed in the preceding pages. A storm center passing over a wider region, on February 9, 1884, produced, after ten o’clock that day, over sixty tornadoes in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee, and North Carolina. Over ten thousand buildings were destroyed, eight hundred people killed, and twenty-five hundred wounded. The damage done by any single one was small, while the aggregate was fearful. The tornado is occasionally seen in Europe: but in the few instances recorded, it has been much smaller, and moved much slower than the same sort of storm in America, though quite as powerful within the territory traversed. One that was very formidable, was observed near Boulogne, in 1822. It moved about irregularly for an hour, tearing holes in the ground, snapping off trees, and twisting down houses; yet, it was not twenty-five feet in diameter. Another one in 1872, swept through a little town in Italy, and was so powerful as to twist iron balcony railings together like so many skeins of thread. Several persons were killed. In some portions of the Sahara and of Arabia, very numerous small whirlwinds accompany desert storms, whirling up the fine sand in dense columns, presenting the appearance of clouds in a region where clouds are unknown. So many writhing columns, swaying like dancing serpents, present a peculiarly terrifying aspect to the superstitious Arab, who has only too good reason to fear them. Strange tales of their destructiveness are rife. It is said that the army of Cambyses was overwhelmed by one of these desert storms. This story must, however, be taken “with a grain of salt.” But there is no doubt that a sand storm is quite as dangerous as a Dakota blizzard. [Illustration: SAND SPOUTS IN THE DESERT.] In tropical regions the tornado or “land-spout,” as many Europeans call it, gives place to the great cyclone. Still, it appears occasionally. One which swept the suburbs of Calcutta, in 1838, was but a few yards in diameter; but in its march of sixteen miles, it killed two hundred and fifteen persons, wounded two hundred and thirty-three, and destroyed one thousand two hundred and forty-five houses: thus displaying quite as great power as any tornado observed in our own land. The speed of rotation was so great that a bamboo cane was driven through a mud wall five feet thick, faced on both sides with brick; as great penetrative power as is usually given to a six-pound cannon-ball. CHAPTER VIII. TROPICAL CYCLONES. “The Storm is on his way! With a lightning sword and a thunder shout, And his robe on the night-wind floating out, The Storm is on his way!