Angelica, the county town of Allegany county; where I first saw the effect of a whirlwind or hurricane, such as could only have been equalled in that native country of the tornado, the West-Indies. The storm occurred on the 25th of July, and commencing near the western boundary of the county, swept across nearly its whole extent from east to west. Its course was from a little north of west, to the same degree south of east. The day was very hot and sultry, and where the gale first became severe, some fifteen miles from where I crossed its track, it was only considered a violent thundergust, such as is experienced every summer; but it soon acquired such force, as, in places, to sweep every thing before it. In its progress, the same violence was not at all times excited; some places seemed wholly passed over; while in the same direction, and only at a short distance, whole forests were uprooted or crushed. In the words of one who was a witness to its progress, 'It seemed to move by bounds, sometimes striking the earth with terrible effect, and then receding from it,' which indeed it is most likely, from appearances, was the case.

In passing up the valley of the river, the pine forests are generally found on what may be called the second bank; up to which the river frequently sweeps in its windings over the rich alluvian that constitutes what is emphatically called the Genessee Flats. This alluvial tract is the most of it under cultivation, and occasional incursions have been made on the pine-covered hills that bound the upper part of the valley; but in most instances, the forests verge on the alluvian. Over this too, nearly on the line of the Genessee Valley canal from Rochester to Olean, passes the main road up and down the river. In the town of Belfast, where the tornado passed, some three or four miles below Angelica, the river washes the eastern bank, leaving the cultivated lands on the west side mostly, and of course these had to be passed by the gale, after it descended from the hills on the west, before the pine woods on the eastern side were reached. Soine few buildings on the east side of the river, to the north of the woods, fell within the limits of the gale, and were dashed to the earth in an instant. At the point of contact between the valley road, (which is here forced by the river on to the secondary bank) and the track of the tornado, the former passes through what was, before the wind, one of the finest pine groves on the river; the trees averaging upward of two feet in diameter, and from a hundred to one hundred and thirty feet in height, straight as arrows, and thickly planted. Through this grove, the road, winding to the south-east, passed for more than a mile, of which the track of the whirlwind covered about three quarters of a mile.

In approaching from the north, the traveller's attention is first arrested by the multitudes of tall pine stumps, splintered and shattered, standing some forty or fifty feet high, and presenting a most novel aspect. When the track of the whirlwind is reached, near the wood, the buildings unroofed, or still nearer, crushed and scattered like the card playhouses of children, leave no doubt as to the agency employed in their destruction.

I have been much interested in the beautiful theory of storms, advanced by Mr. Redfield, of New-York, and illustrated and defended by him with so much ability in the 31st volume of Silliman's Journal;

and observation in various instances had convinced me, that the circular movement attributed by him to them, was in many, if not most cases, actually present. It now occurred to me, that a most favorable opportunity offered, to ascertain whether the tornado was rotary; or whether, as some have supposed, there was only a rush of air from the circumference to the centre, equal at all points, and with an upward current. If the current is rotary, and tending to the centre, there must of course be a current upward; and the difference in the theories consists in the affirming or denying the rotary motion. I consider the question of the rotary motion of storms, as more than one of mere speculative consequence; since if true, and its action were understood, it might be the means of saving annually many vessels that with crew and cargo now founder at sea. * This theory also goes to add one more to the many proofs already existing, that all motion in free space is more or less influenced by the same causes, and governed by the same laws. The little whirlwinds that we see careering over the fields, in the sultry summer's day; the column of steam from the boiling cauldron, or smoke from the burning woodlands; the motion of that unknown something we are pleased to term the aurora borealis; and indeed almost every known movement in nature, when not overcome by counteracting influences, seems to indicate a common cause, and follow a similar direction against the motion of the earth, or from right to left. Shall this movement be attributed to the electro-magnetic current, which modern research has proved is constantly flowing in the same direction around the magnetic meridian; or shall we be content to leave the cause, at present, among the many other unexplained phenomena of nature? Standing in the fields, a few rods from the northern verge of the woodlands, were a number of large pine trees, that had been spared when the lands were cleared. These were overturned by the wind, and lay with their tops to the west, or precisely against the general course of the storm. Standing comparatively isolated, as these did, there cannot remain a doubt, that the wind in this place blew directly opposite to the main advancing current of the storm. When at a little distance, so numerous are the tall stumps of the pine, that it appears as if the tops of the whole wood must have been broken off. On entering, however, it is seen at once, that far the greater number of trees have been torn up by the roots, and their whole lengths lie prostrate. Once in the wood, the scene is most striking. The trunks of the tall pines, piled into and across the road, in every possible direction, had required several hundred days' work to remove them so far as to render it passable; and a few days before I crossed it, the 'wind-fall' had been set on fire, leaving nothing but the long blackened bodies of the pines, in countless thousands, and giving an excel,

WHILE writing this article, I have seen in a letter from New Providence, Bahama Islands, an account of the terrible gales of the 8th and 9th of September, which were unequalled for years in violence, and strewed the reefs of the gulf, and the Florida coast with wrecks. The testimony of various shipmasters bears most conclusive testimony to the correctness of Mr. REDFIELD's theory. At Providence, the wind was violent from the E. and N. E. for several hours, when there was a lull of about five or ten minutes ; when it shifted to the opposite quarter, with the same frightful and destructive force; almost instantly driving under every vessel that had not, during the lull, made prepara tion for the change.

lent opportunity for observing the manner in which they had been deposited by the wind

If the reader will take a pen or pencil, and make a few circles on paper, sweeping round from the right to the left, continuing the line, and advancing it a little distance at each revolution, he will have a better idea of the evident movement of the whirl, and the position of the fallen trees, than can be given by description. The first rush of the tornado clearly prostrated or twisted off the greater part, and the regularity with which the under strata of the trees, especially toward the north and south sides of the whirl, were deposited, plainly indicated the direction of the force that had acted upon them. In entering the track of the tornado from the north, a large part of the fallen trees lay with their heads to the west; farther in, to the northwest or the southwest, as the layers were lower or higher in the mass; near the centre, they were mostly pitched north and south, though the upper layers exhibited great confusion; south of the centre, the tops mainly pointed to the north-east or south-east, until the south verge of the tornado was reached, when their heads lay to the east, exactly the reverse of those on the north side of the track. The trees that resisted the longest, exhibited the greatest irregularity in their position. Oaks, and on the margin of the lowlands, river elms, two or three feet in diameter, were wrung off or crushed down, a mere mass of splintered wood; and within the limits described, nothing small or large seemed able to resist its fury but for a moment.

That the common summer whirlwinds to which I have alluded, have an interior upward, as well as a rotary motion, is clear from the manner in which leaves and other light substances are by them lifted into the air, and when thrown out of the revolving current, fall to the earth by their own gravity. The same effects were observed to take place in this tornado. Articles from the dwelling-houses and barns. torn down by the wind, were thrown out by the whirl in its advance on both sides of the main current, and at great distances from the place where they were taken up. Such articles seemed to be carried higher and farther from the centre at each revolution, until they were thrown without the influence of the vortex, when they of course fell to the earth. A number of occurrences, showing the great velocity and fearful power of the wind, were related on the spot, by those who had suffered from the gale. A house newly finished and ready for painting, stood a little on the outside of the severest part of the whirlwind, and near the margin of the river where it was crossed by the tornado. After the storm, the side of the building most exposed to the blast was found coated over with mud, evidently taken from the river, the bed of which had every appearance of having been swept dry by the wind, in the section most exposed to its power. In another instance, a farmer with his wagon and horses were at a little distance from his barn, and alarmed by the threatening roar, endeavored to get into his barn with his team. The storm was upon him too suddenly, however, and when the rush was over, (and the whole lasted but a very few minutes,) and he had recovered his senses, he found himself some thirty rods from where the barn had stood, in one direction, and his horses about the same distance on the opposite side, but entirely stripped of their harness! The barn, a strong frame

one, was scattered in every direction; and the wagon, torn to pieces, was carried high into the air, and thrown to every part of the compass. Indeed one of the wheels had not been found, at the time I passed up the river, nearly a month afterward. It is probable it was thrown into the river, or carried onward, and plunged into the masses of falling timber, to the east. Great as was the destruction of property, owing to the interposition of a kind Providence but two or three lives were lost.

To observers at a little distance from the course of the tornado, the black masses of clouds violently agitated; the heavy thunder and vivid flashes of lightning issuing from the moving column; and the almost deafening roar with which its progress was accompanied ; presented a combination at once sublime and terrible; and forcibly recalled to the astonished beholders the fine lines of BRYANT to the burricane:

'He is come! he is come! do ye not behold
His ample robes on the wind unrolled?
Giant of air! we bid the bail!

How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale;
How his huge and writhing arms are bent,

To clasp the zone of the firmament!

And hark to the crashing, long and loud,

Of the chariot of GoD in the thunder-cloud!

You may trace its path by the flashes that start
From the rapid wheels where'er they dart,
As the fire-bolts leap to the world below,
And flood the skies with a lurid glow ?

To those who were within the vortex, there was no sound distinguishable above the rush of the tempest, the crash of the demolished buildings, and the frightful groans uttered by the proud pines, as by thousands they bowed, splintered and uprooted, to the earth. Coming, as I did, directly from Niagara, with a fresh and vivid recollection of its ocean of rushing waters, and its deep and never ceasing roar, I can truly say, the impressions of irresistible power made on the mind at that place, very little exceeded those which thronged upon me, as I stood in the track of the tornado, in Allegany county.

W. G.

Utica, (N. Y.,) 1838.

SONNET: TO DEVOTION.

DER! fos' il mio cuor lento, e'l duro seno,
A chi pianta dal ciel, si buon terreno!'

OH! when the wild wind sobs upon the ocean,
And the pine-forests howl in agony,
And yells the hurricane along the sky,
Commingling air and sea in wild commotion;
Then come to me, thou Spirit of Devotion!
And fling thy majesty around my soul,
While in the sky the solemn thunders toll,
And Night's high heart beats with a grand emotion.
Then, while the keen and serious midnight gale
Prepares its wild and melancholy dirges,
And Ocean rouses his orchestral surges,
And the trees creak upon the mountains pale;
Let me but taste thy high society,

And of thy soul, my soul a part shall be.

H. W. R.

'SO DEEPLY Moved was tho pirate, by the notes of the Zenaida dove, (the only soothing sounds be had ever heard during his life of horrors,) that through these plaintive notes, and these alone, he was induced to escape from his vessel, abandon his turbulent companions, and return to a family deploring his absence.' AUDUBON.

LONG had he dared the mighty deep, and heard its warning voice,
By storms upraised, pronounce its doom upon his reckless course;
And yet, the pirate heeded not the voice from ocean's cave,
But stained with blood his daring path across the stormy wave.

The piercing shriek which rent the air, from 'neath his burnished knife,
The thrilling, and quick-stifled prayer, of Fear imploring life;
The sob of Innocence, that broke upon the midnight gloom,
When childhood from its dreams awoke, to meet a watery tomb;

Were but to him, familiar sounds, nor yet regarded more

Than are the flowing tides, by men whose home is on the shore:
'Gainst all, the pirates heart was steeled, and e'en the cry that came
From wife and babes, his own afar, his spirit could not tame.

But ah! the gentle dove prevailed; her soft and plaintive strain
Pierced deep the breast which guilt had mailed, and terror warned in vain ;
As when the ancient Prophet heard the earthquake, and the flame;
But only in the 'still small voice,' the heavenly message came.

And, gentle dove! 'twas thine to bear the errand from on high, To call from eyes long dry, the tear, and wake contrition's sigh. Thus oft when wrathful tones have spent their might, the heart to move, A whisper, makes that heart relent, from thee, blest 'heavenly dove!' Cedar Brook, 1838.

E. C. S.

LOVE IN A LAZZARE T.

'the cell

Haunted by love, the earliest oracle.'

THE surface of the sea assumed the crystalline quietude of a summer calm. The dangling sails flapped wearily; the sun slept with a fierce and dead heat upon the scorching deck; and even the thin line of smoke which rose from Stromboli, appeared fixed like a light cloud in the breezeless sky. I sought relief from the monotonous stillness and offensive glare, by noting my fellow passengers, who seemed to have caught the quiescent mood of surrounding nature, and resigned themselves to listlessness and silence. Delano was lolling upon a light settee, supporting his head upon his hand, and with halfclosed eyes, thinking, I well knew, of the friends we had left, a few hours before, in Sicily. Of all Yankees I ever saw, my companion most rarely combined the desirable peculiarities of that unique race with the superadded graces of less inflexible natures. For native intelligence and ready perception, for unflinching principle and manly sentiment, his equal is seldom encountered; but the idea of thrift, the eager sense of self-interest, and the iron bond of local prejudice, which too often disfigure the unalloyed New-England character, had been tempered to their just proportion, in his disposition, by the influence of travel and society. On the opposite side of the