Transactions. i Wy 
electricity. Some rain fell on Sabbath morning, but it was not 
till three o’clock in the afternoon that the downpour commenced 
in right earnest. At that hour there was a sharp shower, fol- 
lowed, after a brief cessation, by a tremendous torrent of rain, 
accompanied by numerous peals of thunder and flashes of light- 
ning, and shortly after by a high wind, the noise of which almost 
drowned the sound of the thunder, and the sky at the same time 
grew so dark that it was hardly possible to see to read. The 
drains being insufficient to carry off the great body of water which 
fell in so short a space of time, many of the streets and roadways of 
the town and suburbs, and of theareasand cellars in low-lying parts, 
were flooded to a considerable depth. The storm appears to have 
been more severely felt on the shore of the Solway Firth, par- 
ticularly in the neighbourhood of the Brow Well, than further 
-inland. The following description, given in the Standard news- 
paper at the time, is worthy of being quoted :—“ Before the 
heaviest of the rainfall, a hurricane was observed suddenly to 
spring up, apparently about Southerness Point, and drive masses 
of cloud before it in the direction of Silloth. The sight was one 
of terrific grandeur, so rapidly did the clouds speed along, and so 
tumultuously did they roll over each other. When near to Silloth, 
the storm seemed suddenly to veer, and swept across the channel 
and inland in a north-westerly direction. The roar of the wind 
was heard a considerable time before its force could be felt, and 
then the few persons who were out found it impossible to stand 
against it, and were fain to lay themselves prostrate. The rare 
phenomenon of a water spout was also witnessed. The water was 
lashed up into a tapering column, described to us as having been 
higher than the Midsteeple of Dumfries, and this careered along 
in a threatening manner, but it gradually subsided without any 
mischievous result, finally disappearing a little to the north of 
Ladyland, a farm about two miles from Clarencefield.” 
The wettest month of the year was September, with a fall of 
5°79 in., being 3°5 in. above the average. The driest month was 
June, when the total fall was only 0-77 in. There were 224 
days on which precipitation took place in one form or other, but 
on 25 of these the fall did not exceed one hundredth of an inch. 
There were 18 on which snow fell, and 206 rain—total rainfall 
for the year, 40-63 in.; mean of 26 years at Cargen, as reported 
by Mr Dudgeon, 44°85 in. The average rainfall for Dumfries, 
according to a table given in Sir John Herschell’s article on 
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