474 MR MILNE ON TWO STORMS WHICH PASSED OVER 



the thunder awfully loud. Some of the largest trees in the parks ahout London 

 were uprooted. Considerable injury was done by lightning, not only in London, 

 but in most of the to^vTis of the south of England. 



I am inclined to think that this, the first great storm of the bygone winter, 

 was, on the whole, not so severe as the storm which occurred on the first week 

 of Januaiy ] 839. But if the lowness of the barometer be any criterion, it was in 

 some parts of the country even more violent. In London, Liverpool, Wigtonshire, 

 Ayrshire, the barometer was lower on the 29th November, than it was on the 

 7th January. In London it was 4— lOths lower. In Edinburgh it was pretty 

 much the same on both occasions, viz. 27.7, which is the mean of all the obser- 

 vations. 



This storm was experienced first on the south-west coast of Ireland. I learn 

 from the meteorological register kept at Adare Abbey (near Limerick), that it be- 

 gan there about 2 a. si. on the 28th. It reached Cork about 3 or 4 a. m. the 

 same morning ; * Penzance, Tmro, and Falmouth, about 5 a. m. ; Milford, about 

 7 A. M. ; Plymouth, about 9 a. m. ; Fairnborough (near Bagshot), about 10 a. m. 

 It did not reach Coloony, in the north-west of Ireland, tiU about noon on the 

 28th. 



At all these places there had been, as previously mentioned, if not a calm, 

 light airs from the westward. But at the hours just specified, the wind suddenly 

 sprung up from the south-east, blowing with great violence. 



This storm had a much wider range, and it endured for a longer period, than 

 the one previously described. It was not till the forenoon of the 30th, that it 

 ended in the south of England, when, as will be immediately seen, it passed, like 

 its precursor, to the northward, — continuing, therefore, rather more than two 

 days before it ceased in that part of the island. 



The progressive movement of this storm, was more rapid than that of the 

 first. I have said that it began near Limerick at 2 a. m. on the 28th. It reached 

 Dublin and Liverpool about 1 p. m. ; Glasgow at 3 p. m. ; Kirkcaldy (Firth of 

 Forth) between 4 and 6 p. m. ; and Redheugh coast-guard station, near St Abb's 

 Head, at 6 p. m. At all these places, it begun in nearly the same way, viz. with 

 the wind from SE. At Cuxhaven (at the mouth of the Elbe) the frosts did not 

 give way tiU the night of the 28th, and next morning the gale commenced there 

 with the wind from SW. From these data, it results, that the storm travelled 

 in a north or N.NE. direction, at the rate of about twenty miles an hour. 



This inference, from the time when the storm begun at different places, is 

 confirmed by observing the time of its veering from SE. to SW. or S.SW., at these 

 and other places. The following table presents a number of places, chronologi- 

 cally arranged, where this veering successively occurred. 



• The St Patrick steam-vessel, which left Liverpool on the 27th, was wrecked on the Irish coast at 

 o A. M. on the 28th November. She was overwhelmed by the first gusts of the second storm. 



