Transactions. 45 



Holyvvood, aud Kirkniahoe parishes suffered severely, but places 

 to the east and west, although experiencmg the thunderstorm with 

 heavy rain, appear to have been exempted from the plague of 

 hail." Thunderstorms of exceptional severity occurred in many 

 parts of the country on the same day, or between the oth and the 

 10th of the_ month of July ; and my attention has been called to 

 the report of the proceedings of the English^Meteorological Society 

 at London, in which it is stated that on the same day and about 

 the same hour asj at Dumfries a similar hailstorm passed over 

 Peterborough, and in the neighbourhood of Harrogate and Rich- 

 mond in Yorkshire, with hailstones of^'iour and five inches in 

 circumference, and. some as much as three inches in diameter. 



Wind. — The summary of wind directions shows that on 21 

 days it blew from the north,?on 3G from'^'the north-east, on 31^ 

 from the east, on 2G from|the south-east, on 41 from the south, 

 on 79 from the south-west, on 77^ from the west, on 43 from the 

 nortli- west," and that'on) 10|- it was^calm or variable. As usual, 

 the south-Avest wind was the most frequent, and, taking the south 

 and west along _,with^it, it appears that 197| days out of the 365 

 were characterised by winds from these directions, while the 

 northerly and easterly, including the south-easterly and north- 

 westerly, had 157|- days. 



3. — Recent Investigations of the Roman Wall between the Tyne 



and Solway. 



By Mr Alexander D. Murray, Newcastle. 



The Roman Wall between the Solway and the Tyne has been 

 so much and so elaborately written about by antiquaries, and has 

 been so minutely explored, that it might be thought to be the best 

 known and most fully explained antiquity in this country. But as 

 a matter of fact, it still remains something of a mj stery ; nor does 

 it seem as if the problem of its erection and purpose would ever be 

 satisfactorily solved. At the present time the Newcastle Society of 

 Antiquaries is raising a fund for the purpose of conducting ex- 

 plorations on the sites of the stations, and for generally making a 

 more complete investigation of the whole work tlian has ever been 

 made before. In the meantime, however, other and independent 

 observers have been drawn to the spot; and a little work pub- 

 lished last year by Mr George Neilson, of Glasgow, made some 



