NOTES —ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 



287 



In one place, about 100 yards from this spot, the destruction has been 

 tremendous. In a circle of nearly 40 yards diameter, whole trunks, huge 

 limbs and branches, with immense masses of earth, lie on the ground in wild 

 confusion, mingled in such a manner that it is impossible to count the 

 number of trees destroyed. It appears as if a battery of heavy artillery had 

 been directed against a great mass of timber which had crowded that part of 

 the park.'' The narrator gives numerous details of havoc in various parts of 

 the grounds, which attest the extraordinary force and capricious character of 

 the storm, and remarked that the "blast has not taken a direct and lofty 

 course, sweeping all before it ; and we can form no other idea of it, than that 

 it moved with infinite velocity, undulating like the rushing of a mightv sea; 

 sometimes passing over the spires of the s-iffantir oaks and elms, and then 



W 



Effects of Storm in Thorndon Park, October 12th, 1S41. 



striking the earth, rebounding and insinuating itself beneath some trees, and 

 levelling others by its force operating near the earth." .... "We 

 understand that (the storm) did some little injury at the distance of a mile to 

 the east of the park. It was also severely felt at Upminster, in the west, 

 before it commenced its ravages on Lord Petre's demesne. We have 

 endeavoured to compute the extent of mischief done in the park, but find it 

 impossible, from the confused state in which the shattered and fallen timber 

 at present lies ; but we believe there cannot be less than 300 trees torn up, or 

 so much shattered as to render it necessary that their remains should be 

 felled. As to the partially injured timber, it is too extensive to be enumerated. 

 This park, during the war, furnished some of the finest naval timber that 

 could be procured in the kingdom, and it still presents a large number of 

 equally valuable trees. . . . It is a little singular that the noise occasioned 



