1^6 On ^unuUaneous Thnndcr-Sioims. 



blue colonr. By 8 o'clock the storm subsided : on the fol- 

 lowing day, July 30th, after a bright morning, a still more 

 violent storm occurred very suddenly in the neighbourhood of 

 Lausanne : its formation was prodigiously rapid, so that in five 

 minutes after bright sunshine, a torrent of rain and hail fell, 

 which desolated many of the vineyards, and the thunder and 

 lightning scarcely ceased diu'ing the space of several following 

 hours. In travelling from Lausanne to Vevai, we were forced 

 to alight from the carriage and take refuge in a house by the 

 road side. At Belle Aiio near Vevai, the residence of M. Bart. 

 Huber, the hail is said to have descended in stones above an 

 inch in diameter, and to have been so destructive that scarcely 

 one entire bunch of grapes remained on the vines after it was 

 over. I heard of a few persons being killed and part of a house 

 destroyed in the neighbourhood. As I travelled home along 

 the Rhine, by way of Bale and Strasbourg, into Llolland, I 

 found, by making inquiries, that contemporaneous storms of 

 similar violence had been witnessed throughout a most exten- 

 sive tract of country, both in France and Germany. At the 

 Hague three men were killed, and a fourth was killed while 

 travelling on the road towards Haerlem. At Dunkirk the 

 lofty tower of the church was struck, and the sentinel placed 

 at the top was attacked by the lightning and rendered sense- 

 less for some time, though he eventually recovered. I heard 

 also of several flocks of sheep and other cattle being destroyed 

 by the electric fluid. At Bridgenorth in England, on Sunday 

 the 28th of July (being the day previous to the great storm at 

 Nyon), the lightning did considerable mischief — killed one 

 person, and a great many sheep ; and I have received several 

 similar accounts from other parts ; thus proving — not only a 

 disposition in the air to produce thunder-storms at very distant 

 places, but proving also that they occurred in distant places 

 with the same violent and mischievous character. 



I shall be obliged by any accounts of the said storms made 

 by yc-ur correspondents in different places, and of the state of 

 the instrumentsc-f meteorology at the time, and communicated 

 throcgh your Journal : and I have the honour to remain 



Your most obedient 



T. FonsTER. 



P. S. The thermometer at Lausanne on the 30th of July 

 stood at Si of Fahrenheit at noon. 



XXXVI. Be- 



I 



