Other Tornado Myths

The report that a gentleman at Fargo, during the hail storm at that place on Monday evening last, picked up a hailstone which, when it melted, released from its embrace a small frog actually embedded in the heart of the stone, created some considerable discussion the other evening in a certain business house in this city, which digressed in various ways, treating the presence of angle-worms, frogs, etc., in a rain-storm and their transit from earth to the clouds to be rained down, when it was decided by a scientific member of the party that they were carried up in a waterspout. Waterspouts were then discussed, and it was stated by the scientific gentleman that the discharge of a cannon or any loud noise near a waterspout would break it, many vessels at sea carrying guns for this purpose. At this the house was brought down by the suggestion from another of the party that in the absence of a cannon the scientific gentleman might “shoot his mouth off’ and bust any waterspout that ever spouted. The subject changed to a beer spout. (Brainerd Tribune, Saturday, August 31, 1878, Page 4)