366 The Great Wiltshire Storm. 



entreating their patience and forbearance, until at least they have 

 investigated the subject in some degree for themselves ; and I can 

 assure them that the deeper they dive into the mysteries of this 

 science, the more they will find to astonish and amaze them, more 

 particularly if they extend their enquiries beyond our island to 

 tropical latitudes, where it is notorious that the hailstorm, the 

 rainstorm, the hurricane, and the tornado have their home. And 

 if this latter remark seems to weaken my argument, and to allude 

 to another phase of the subject inapplicable to our Wiltshire storm, 

 I beg at once to bring forward the valuable testimony of Captain 

 Sherard Osborn,' R.N. who declares that in all his experience of 

 typhoons in China and other Southern and tropical countries, he 

 never had an idea of the power of wind till the day he visited the 

 scene of our Wiltshire tornado. 



With these preliminary observations, I now address myself to 

 my subject. 



The close of the year 1859 will long be remembered by the in- 

 habitants of some of the villages of North Wilts as the period of 

 "the Great Storm." It occurred at about half- past one p.m. on 

 Friday, December 30th, and beginning its devastations about a 

 mile to the south of Calne, and coming up for the west, it shaped 

 its course for E.N.E., and took nearly a straight line in that 

 direction for about thirteen miles, its breadth varying from 250 to 

 about 400 yards: at what velocity 1 it rushed over this course it ia 



1 To avoid misconception I should explain here, that when I speak of the 

 rapidity of its passage, I would not by any means imply that the destructive 

 effects of the storm were in consequence of the velocity with which it rushed 

 over its track. I believe this could not have been the case, as it would have 

 been at a rate of much more than a mile in a minute, whereas several persons 

 distinctly heard the roar of the storm (not the thunder) at least three or four 

 minutes before it came on or passed by. In the case of the storm, to which I 

 shall afterwards allude, at Clyffo Pypard, it passed from Glastonbury to Oxford at 

 the rate of about 32 miles per hour, whereas the wind to produce such effects 

 must have had a velocity of from 60 to 80 miles in that time. If the destruc- 

 tive effects had been produced by the velocity with which the storm passed along 

 its track, they would have been more uniform, and the greater violence of the 

 hurricane could not have occurred as it did at particular spots; but it is not 

 difficult to conceive such jumps or breaks as resulting from the irregularity of 

 the rainfall, and consequently of tho rarefaction produced by it, as I shall after- 

 wards more fully explain. I believe a storm cloud may pass along at a mode- 



