1871.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 145 
sky was overcast with heavy black clouds and about this time, I 
experienced a peculiar sensation of uneasines which prevented me 
from sleeping. I got out of bed and walked into my verandah 
which faces the south, and had not been there above ten minutes, 
when I was startled by a regular crash of thunder on the west. 
Several crashes followed in quick succession on the north and N. 
W., and all, as far as I could possibly observe, came from clouds 
overhanging the northern portion of the city. This drew my at- 
tention to the north and I then walked out to an open terrace on 
the north of my house. It was now midnight, the wind had veer- 
ed to south, and I distinctly observed black masses of cloud com- 
ing up from the south, while others seemed rushing towards them 
from the N. W. and north. The clouds from the south were appa- 
rently lower than those coming from the N. W. and N. On 
these clouds meeting or crossing each other, the first severe claps 
of thunder and vivid flashes of lightning were observed by me. 
At times the flashes of lightning followed with barely an interval 
of a second between each, while the roar of thunder was con- 
tinuous for nearly 30 or 40 seconds at a time. 
Rain coming on, I returned to the south verandah ; this was 
about 1 a. m. I now experienced a sensation very similar to that 
I had often felt when overtaken by storms in the higher Himalay- 
as, viz., an irritation about the surface of the skin caused by my 
hair turning, and felt sure that the storm was close in my neigh- 
bourhood. I now took up my position so as to watch the light- 
ning conductors and observatory on the Surveyor General’s Office, 
distant from my house about 150 yards :— 
At 1-20 a, m. the large masses of black clouds seemed to me to 
be traversing over the southern portion of the city from W. to 
E., wind N. W. The lightning was extremely vivid and the 
thunder deafening, and I now first noticed, sparks (as it appeared 
to me) shooting in and out of the conductor over the anemometer 
at top of the 8. G. O. observatory. 
The appearance of the conductor is given in fig. 1, plateII. The 
portion of the conductor from A to A was alive with sparks, flash- 
ing to and from it. Suddenly there was a streak of lightning from 
a cloud overhead which almost blinded me, followed on the instant 
