368 NOTES — ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 



ririest areas relative to the average, and probably the driest 

 absolutely for the year, seem to have been in Norfolk and in a 

 narrow strip running from south of Leicester through Lincoln 

 to Hull. Here the excess was under 10 per cent." Dr. Mill 

 states that " Over the British Isles as a whole the rainfall was 

 certainly considerably more than 25 per cent, above the average, 

 and England, Scotland, and Ireland differed little in the amount 

 of the excess." 



At Shoeburyness, tlie only Essex station mentioned, outside 

 the London district, the rainfall was 29-52 in., the average from 

 1870 to 1899 having been i9'75 in. Within the London district 

 the rainfall at Leytoa (Lea-bridge road) in 1903 was 36*27 in. ; 

 at Greenwich Observatory 35 54 in. ; at Camden Square 38-10 in. ; 

 and at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Kensington, 42-37 in. — 

 T.V.H. 



MISCELLANEA. 



An Early Electrical Experiment in Essex. — The follow- 

 ing incident in the life of Benjamin Wilson, F.R.S., the celebrated 

 portrait painter, father of General Sir Robert Wilson, may be 

 of interest^ :—" In 1747 Dr. Franklin published his discovery of 

 the identity of lightning with electricity. Wilson's attention was 

 immediately awakened. On the occurrence of the first succeeding 

 thunderstorm he happened to be at the house of a friend near 

 Chelmsford, in Essex, and at the moment was acting, with others, 

 one of Shakespeare's plays. He was playing the part of 

 Henry IV. when the storm came on, and running out in his royal 

 robes he extemporised an apparatus to test the discovery — a 

 curtain-rod inserted in a clean, dry quart bottle, with a pin for 

 needle) fastened to it at the other end. The bottle he held in his 

 hand as he stood upon the bowling green, and the fluid was 

 collected in the rod so that sparks were drawn from it by himself 

 and all the rest. On the same day the same effects were observed 

 by Mr. Canton in London, and this storm was the first occasion 

 of the experiuient being tried in England." 



I Life of General Sir Robert Wilson, by the Rev. Herbert Randolph, 1862, Vol. i, p. 11. 



END OF VOLUME XIII 



