Whirlwind

“ No wind murmurs pleasantly through their dead and shrunken branches, the howling tempest alone can make them speak, and then with wild straining shriek and harsh rattle, they do battle with the whirlwind. ”

“ Sometimes the air, by the meeting of opposite currents, assumes the form of a whirlwind: a dark cloud preceding it, unrolling itself suddenly, and mantling the whole heavens in gloom, lightened occasionally by the flashings of lurid fire,—while if upon land, houses, corn-stacks, cane-fields, and even whole forests, are whirled aloft and scattered to fragments in an instant ”

“ And, wherever there is a whirlwind and a storm, God has the command of it, the control of it, makes his way through it, goes on his way in it, and serves his own purposes by it. He spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, and even stormy winds fulfil his word. He has his way in the whirlwind, that is, he goes on undiscerned, and the methods of his providence are to us unaccountable; as it is said, His way is in the sea. The clouds are the dust of his feet; he treads on them, walks on them, raises them when he pleases, as a man with his feet raises a cloud of dust. ”

“ The fierce whirlwind, that in mockery of human daring had tossed them, like the stubble of the field, had realized the dream of the sleeper, and borne off their long profuse hair in its vengeful sweep. ”

“ Sometimes, with laughing eyes, she would whirl round like a boolee, or whirlwind. Then suddenly she would change to a stately measure. Then for variety's sake perform a series of swift gyrations, as if, indeed, a whirlwind devil had her in his grip. ”

“ A whirlwind is not only a boisterous wind, that hurls and rolls everything out of its place, but, by its circular motion, by its winding to all points of the compass, it confounds things, and jumbles them together. It keeps not one point, but, by a circumgyration, toucheth upon all. Clouds, like dust, shall be blown in their face, and gum up their eyes: they shall be in a posture of confusion, not know what counsels to take, what motions to resolve upon. ”

“ But when the wild storm-wind shrieks over the sea and the skies are dark and lowering, they forget their fears, and are filled with madness. Then they chase each other across the black waters with wild locks flying in the wind, and woe to those who are out upon the high seas when the Nereids dance in the storm, for their dance is the dance of Death. The fire of the lightning runs hot in their veins as they fly on the wings of the whirlwind, and wherever they go the waves hiss white and angry behind them. ”

“ Even arguing that a whirlwind may stand still axially, it discharges tangentially. Wherever the fishes came from it does not seem thinkable that some could have fallen and that others could have whirled even a tenth of a minute, then falling directly after the first to fall. ”

“ Even so must move the blasts of all the winds, Which, when they spread, like to a mighty flood, Hither or thither, drive things on before And hurl to ground with still renewed assault, Or sometimes in their circling vortex seize And bear in cones of whirlwind down the world: The winds are sightless bodies and naught else— Since both in works and ways they rival well The mighty rivers, the visible in form. ”

“ The whirlwind, properly so called, is a much smaller body of atmosphere. Sometimes we see miniature whirlwinds, even in our own temperate land, passing along a road in autumn, lifting the leaves and dust into the air and carrying them along in the form of a rotatory pillar. In other regions they exert a power quite equal to the tempest, though in a more limited space, overturning houses, uprooting trees, cutting a track twenty or thirty yards wide through the dense forest as thoroughly as if a thousand woodmen had been at work there for many years. ”

“ With a piercing shriek Whirlwind turned and mounted quickly upward. He passed with a howl through the open window in the roof, and then his form was changed, but what it was now no one knew or was able to describe, for as often as any one opened eyes to look at him he filled them with dust and water; if any one sniffed him he made them sneeze; if any one tried to lay hands upon him he buffeted them in the chest and turned them about like weather vanes, all the while crying out, "What is my shape?" Only pigs could see him and knew of what shape he was and they had no powers of description. ”

“ Through the whirlwinds darted vivid lightning, followed by peculiarly loud and ominous thunder. The lightning seem confined to the clouds. In about twenty minutes the whirlwind passed over, and the heavy thunder-storm traveled rapidly to the northeast. ”

“ Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm. ”

“ To think of a whirlwind, though 'twere in a whirlwind, were a case of more steady contemplation, a very tranquillity of mind and mansion. A fellow that lives in a windmill has not a more whimsical dwelling than the heart of a man that is lodged in a woman. ”

“ Is not the whirlwind active when it tears up the forest?”130 Not at all, in any sense pertaining to the present controversy. The tremendous power, whatever it may be, which sets the whirlwind in motion, is active; the wind itself is perfectly passive. ”

“ Tell me what starts the whirlwind or the cyclone, and I can tell you that. All I'm sure of is that I can originate the force, control it, and release it in any strength I choose. Do you remember the chap called Æolus we used to read about in the Latin book at school, he that bagged up the winds long ago? ”

“ Whirlwind.—A conspicuous, although minor feature in the atmospheric phenomena of the hot, dry plains and 204 valleys, especially of the Mexican plateau and the Great Basin, and less markedly of the Great plateau to the east of the Rocky Mountains, is the occurrence of small whirlwinds which carry dust and light objects into the air in spiral columns that are not infrequently 2,000 or 3,000 feet high, and have a diameter of perhaps 50 to 100 feet. ”

“ The whirlwinds ravage, or the whirlwinds stay,
At whose dread call the thunder springs to birth,
The strong winds rack the firm and solid earth,
And lightnings glare, and ocean foams with ire,
And snow-clad rocks burst forth with flames of fire ”

“ When these winds meet, the stronger will bend the weaker, and a whirl will ensue. The two winds still coming on, the whirl will be increased, and thus a whirlwind is formed, which immediately begins to travel—not at random, of course, but in the direction of least pressure. ”

“ The hail and the whirlwind are, like most of the natural phenomena which we have been discussing, attributed to demoniacal agency. The Maruts who ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm hold a prominent place in the Veda, where they are represented as the friends and allies of Indra. Another famous tempest demon was Trinâvartta, who assumed the form of a whirlwind and carried off the infant Krishna, but was killed by the child. ”

“ On the whirlwind bore them until they reached the sky, where it placed the two trees with the boys still clinging to them. And there they still are, near the Milky Way, and known as Wurrawilberoo. The boomerangs are scattered all along the Milky Way, for the whirlwind had gathered them all together in its rush through space. Having placed them all in the sky, down came the whirlwind, retaking its natural shape, which was that of the old man, for so had he wreaked his vengeance on his sons for neglecting their parents. ”

“ But, if that which appears a water-spout at sea, does sometimes, in its progressive motion, meet with and pass over land, and there produce all the phenomena and effects of a whirlwind, it should thence seem still more evident, that a whirlwind and a spout are the same. ”

“ I. The resemblance of a wicked man to a whirlwind. 1. They are both destructive forces. A whirlwind passes over a district and everything that resists its advance is either overthrown, broken, or made to bend to its fury. ”

“ When the violent whirlwinds which prevail in the desert, terminate in gusts of wind, they usually expand over several square miles of surface, raging with irresistible force, and bearing upward an immense body of sand, which descends as the current of air that gave it action dies away, thus creating the extraordinary appearance in question. ”

“ There may be whirlwinds of both kinds, but from the commonly observed effects, I suspect the rising one to be the most common: when [23] the upper air descends, it is, perhaps, in a greater body, extending wider, as in our thunder-gusts, and without much whirling; and, when air descends in a spout, or whirlwind, I should rather expect it would press the roof of a house inwards, or force in the tiles, shingles, or thatch, force a boat down into the water, or a piece of timber into the earth, than that it would lift them up, and carry them away. ”

“ Whirlwinds are believed to be the passing of spirits, and the whole realm of the meteorological is full of portents,—the rainbow, oddly enough, conceived as a serpentine monster, being a sign of calamity rather than an arc of hope. ”

“ Whirl′wind′, a small vortex motion of the earth's atmosphere, generally produced by the meeting of two contrary winds. Prof. R. W. Wood has shown a neat method of producing artificial whirlwinds. He heats a large iron plate — say four feet square — by placing a number of Bunsen burners underneath. ”

“ Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm. ”

“ In these cases, though the supernatural being may be out of reach, that does not hinder men and women from pitting their orenda against his; and as soon as the storm {180} or the eclipse comes to an end they naturally vaunt their success. In the form of wind indeed he may be held to descend to actual blows with his human opponents. Professor Frazer has collected a number of examples of fighting the storm and the whirlwind.180.1 Nor are those examples confined to such as already recounted. ”

“ All at once the clouds began to work round in circles, as if chasing one another through the air. Suddenly the dark arch of clouds appeared to break up into detached masses, whirling and mixing through each other in dreadful commotion. The forked lightning was incessant, accompanied by heavy thunder. In a short time, the clouds seemed to converge to a point, which approached very near the earth, still whirling with great rapidity directly under this point ”

“ Whirlwinds which carry water [spouts] branches of trees, and men through the air.
Boughs stripped off by the winds, mingling by the meeting of the winds, with people upon them.
Broken trees loaded with people.
Ships broken to pieces, beaten on rocks.
Flocks of sheep. Hail stones, thunderbolts, whirlwinds.
People on trees which are unable to to support them; trees and rocks, towers and hills covered with people, boats, tables, troughs, and other means of floating. Hills covered with men, women and animals; and lightning from the clouds illuminating every thing. ”

“ It has been ascertained that most of the great storms that sweep with devastating fury over the land and sea are not, as was supposed, rectilinear in their motion, but circular. They are, in fact, enormous whirlwinds, sometimes upwards of one hundred and fifty miles in diameter; and they not only whirl round their own centres, but advance steadily forward through space. ”

“ These storms, for which the Gulf Stream has such attraction, and over which it seems to exercise so much control, are said to be, for the most part, whirlwinds. All boys are familiar with miniature whirlwinds on shore. ”

“ By the spirit of Pan, my pool felt good after the long day's hike!
The wind had changed with the waning afternoon and now blew gently from the southwest, promising a period of fair weather. It gave us, also, the advantage of greater freedom in noises; for, when living in the wild, one comes to realize how potent a carrier, or muffler, of noises is the wind. A fire at night, or smoke by day, may be tempered with human ingenuity, but nature bandies the sound waves with her breath.
I dined in the elegance of simplicity, and Smilax extinguished our small fire of buttonwood. ”

“ True inspiration seems certainly born of this marriage of wind and fire. How singular⁠—have you ever thought? would be the impressions of a man to whom the motion of air, as wind, was unknown, when first he witnessed the phenomenon of a twenty-knot breeze. Imagine a people that knew not wind⁠—how they would tremble to see the treetops bend; to hear the roar, the whispers, the sweet singing of all Nature about them for the first time; to know the sounds and movements of the myriad objects that but for wind would be silent and motionless from one year’s end to another! ”

“ But in all lives must come some stormy days. In our picture we can see the clouds gathering, feel the warning stillness in the air, and know that the storm will break soon. The strange calm keeps the water still and lifeless, the sails of the boat hang flat and unruffled, the trees are without motion, and the great arms of the windmill wait to catch the first faint breeze. ”

“ Oh, I love a storm. I love the grand jubilee of the earth, when sea, and wind, and lightning, and storm, all join in the glorious hymn of the tempest. Oh, the nights that I have spent on sea when nothing was to be seen but the black pall of the heavens above, rent every instant by the forked lightning, while the crash of the thunder, and the roar of the wind and waves mingled together in the sublime refrain, and our ship went driving on, as if mad. ”

“ Wilder grows the storm: the winds are released from their 'prison-cave,' and armed with fury they rush madly forth; brighter the lightnings glare, louder the thunders roar. The whole fabric of nature seems in commotion! Oh, who can gaze upon such a scene without emotions of awe, wonder and admiration? Surely such an one must possess a stony heart and a cold nature. There is beauty for me in the lightning's glare—there is music in the thunder's peal! ”