13 



owing to the occurrence of this lull that the tremendous noise and violence of 

 the whirlwind struck the cottagers with so much terror. One of them 

 describes the cracking of the trees and the roaring of the wind as the most 

 awfid sounds he had ever heard, "far louder than the thunder," no doubt 

 because it was so much nearer. 



In the imdulations of its course, too, this was a true tornado. It began 

 in a hollow at Felton Court, thence passed ujj the hillside, fortmiately missing 

 the new chiu-ch, the rectoiy, and the noble elms and oaks by which they are 

 surrounded ; then crossed the road into an orchard, where it did some 

 damage ; thence leajied across the intervening crops to a second orchard, 

 thence descended the hill to Bebbury Farm ; thence to a cottage ; thence 

 crossed the Bromyard road into another orchard ; then took a ccur'se parallel 

 with the road to Cornet's cottage, through the Kichlands plantation, turned 

 again to the left throu,'h another orchard, and then ascending kept parallel 

 with the road, crossed the neighbouring hill, descended into a gully, and then 

 ascending passed away. 



A more detailed descrijjtion is appended, the result of close observation. 



The first place we visited was the wood or coppice of oak and ash trees, 

 in the occupation of ilr. Phillips, of Eichland, and belonging to Mrs. Penoyre. 

 This wood is close to the turnpike-road at Cornet s-bridge, and near the 

 cottage occupied by William Holt. 



Here the whirwind v.'as evidently at its height, for large oak trees, two 

 feet in diameter, are broken short ofif near the ground ; the tops of others are 

 splintered in all directions. Others are blo^vn down, the roots taking up 

 large quantities of the soil in large discs thirteen feet in diameter. 



Here, evidently, opposite hurricanes met, causing the whirlwind, as the 

 trees have been blown down in different directions, which is not the* case in 

 the orchards further west. 



Perhaps no meteorologic phenomena are better imderstood than thunder 

 and lightning, though before electrical science had been studied by the 

 philosophers of the last century, and the crowning experiment of Franklin 

 performed, the phenomena of thimder and lightning were little understood. 

 Clouds, being made up of watery vesicles are necessarily electrical conductors ; 

 and, being surrounded by the atmosphere on all sides, are necessarily 

 insulated. One cloud we will assume M be positively electrified — that is to 

 say, charged with positive electricity. There is not in all nature such a 

 condition as that of independent electric excitation; in other words, there 

 caimot be one body positively excited without the co-existence of another 

 body negatively excited. The two clouds are mutually attracted, because 

 opposite electricities attract each other. Hence they approach until the space 

 of air between the two is insufficient to restrain their mutual electric tension. 

 This condition having arrived, a charge takes place in a flash of lightning, but 

 sound travelling at the rate of only 1,142 feet in a second, we do not hear the 

 thunder for a certain time afterwards, in proportion to the distance the 



