It need not be said that he did not accomplish the impossibility he had proposed to himself, and his machine now lies in a garret almost forgotten. Had the "Lawyer" been a married man he would not have met so appalling a fate and, besides, if we may rehash a stale joke on the ladies, he might have got some valuable hints from his wife's tongue and accomplished something for science. Mr. Clowe was succeeded in January, 1859, by Alfred M. Barbour, a young lawyer from western Virginia, whose administration was the most eventful in the history of the place, as it was during that period that the great civil war broke out which, as is well known, caused the total destruction of the armory works. Other remarkable events, however, occurred in Mr. Barbour's time which were precursors of the subsequent great evils and foreshadowed the final catastrophe. These will be narrated in the next chapter. On the 28th day of June, 1859, a memorable tornado swept over the place. About 3 o'clock in the afternoon a thunder storm came up and two clouds were noticed approaching each other, driven by currents of wind from opposite directions. When they encountered one another, a fierce flash of lightning followed by an appalling thunder peal, lit up the heavens. Rain poured down in cataracts, and, as if Aeolus had suddenly released all his boisterous subjects, the winds rushed from all quarters and came in conflict in the gap through which the Potomac finds its way to the Ocean. In the war of winds a fine covered bridge that crossed the Shenandoah about three hundred yards above the mouth of that river was lifted from its piers and completely overturned into the bed of the stream. Mrs. Sloan, a respectable old lady, happened to be on the bridge at the time and, of course, was carried with it into the river. She was found shortly after, standing up in a shallow place, and completely covered over with the debris of the wrecked bridge, but fortunately, and almost miraculously, she received very little injury.