s, and has money loaned on
mortgages; in short, is worth about fifty thousand dollars, every cent
of which he has gained by his own exertions in the last twenty years. He
said: "When my father died and his estate was divided among his
children, each of us received eighty-three dollars as his share. I
resolved then that if thrift and energy could avail anything I would
have more than that to leave to each of my children when I died. It has
required constant hard work and shrewd planning, but I have gained my
stake, and am not a very old man yet," passing his hand over his hair,
which was thinly sprinkled with gray.

This man gave us a description of a tornado which passed over that
portion of the State a number of years ago. It was shortly after he was
married and while he was staying at his father-in-law's house. The whole
family were away from home that day, and when they returned they found
only the cellar. The house had been lifted from its foundation, and
carried so far on the mighty wings of the hurricane that nothing
pertaining to it was ever found except the rolling-pin and a few boards
of the yellow-painted kitchen-floor. Of a new farm-wagon nothing
remained but one tire, and that was flattened out straight. The trees
that stood in the yard had been broken off at the surface of the ground.
The grass lay stretched in the direction of the hurricane as if a flood
of water had passed over it. Horses, cattle and human beings had been
lifted and carried several rods through the air, then cast violently to
earth again. Those who witnessed the course of the tornado said that it
seemed to strike the ground, then go up in the air, passing harmlessly
over a mile or two of country, then strike again, all the time whirling
over and over, and occasionally casting out fragments of the spoils it
had gathered up. After passing east to a point beyond the Mississippi it
disappeared.

This part of Iowa has rich deposits of coal, and mining is a regular and
important business. The coal-mines lying a few miles south of this place
are the largest west of the Mississippi River. A thriving little town
has grown up around them, composed chiefly of miners' cottages, stores
and superintendents' dwellings. A creek winds through it whose banks are
shaded by elms and carpeted in spring and early summer with
prairie-flowers; and a range of wooded hills in whose depths the richest
coal-deposits lie lends a picturesque aspect to the scene, and