68
nection between whirlwinds, dust-storms, and circular gales, and go so far as to say that whirlwinds and dust-storms are but miniature typhoons.
I will cite a few cases of this kind which (if electricity be considered one of the agents in the production of circular gales) certainly proves to some extent that the idea is not altogether unfounded.
I quote from Mr. Peddington’s work, page 303, where will be found the following report by Dr. H. P. Baddeley, H. E. I. C. S., dated from Lahore, showing by experiments that the dust storms are purely electrical.
“My observations on this subject have extended as far back as the hot weather of 1847 (this was written in 1850 in the “Philosophical Magazine” for August) when I first came to Lahore; and the result is as follows:—Dust storms are caused by spiral columns of the electric fluid passing from the atmosphere to the Earth. They have an onward motion and a revolving motion, like revolving storms at sea, and a peculiar spiral motion from above downwards like a cork-screw. It seems probable that in an extensive dust-storm there are many of these columns moving on together in the same direction; and during the continuance of the storm many sudden gusts take place at intervals, during which the electric tension is at its maximum.
These storms hereabouts mostly commence from the N.W. or W. and in the course of an hour—more or less—they have nearly completed the circle, and have passed onwards.
Precisely the same phenomena, in kind, are observable in all cases of dust-storms; from the one of a few feet in diameter, to those that extend for fifty miles and upward, the phenomena are identical.
It is a curious fact that some of the smaller dust-storms—occasionally seen in extensive and arid plains, both in this country and in Affgghanistan above the Bolan Pass, called in familiar language “Devils,”—are stationary for a long time, that is upwards of an hour, or nearly so, and during the whole of this time the dust and minute
