210 Miscellanies. 
I trust, through the medium of your Journal, this. will meet the eyes 
of some who are es in locomotive machinery, and will test my 
plan on a large scale. ; F. G, Woopwakrp. 
16. Destructive Thunder Shower.—The thunder storm of the eve- 
ning of September 14th, 1840, will long be remembered in the counties 
of Onedia, Madison, and Onondaga, in central New York, for the = 
damage it occasioned in the burning of buildings and the destruction of 
animal life. There were several circumstances attending this storm, 
which, from their — character, appear to deserve a particular 
notice. 
The first of these was the low temperature, which had existed for 
arrece wi 8 harem as the following table will show. 
Yorelock. —-Doveloek. “Wind. 
September 11, 48° - Se SS WE. 
12, 43° 55° N. 
f° o83; 62° ORE eB NGS. Ba Behe 
ne Seo 14, 56° 65° = N. Bis" See A 
cc Ss. Ww 
: 50° 66° : 
A temperature as low as this, has ernie been deemed incompati- 
ble with the formation of thunder showers, much less of such an aston- 
ishing development of electricity as the evening of the 14th exhibited. 
All the days noted, with the exception of the first, which was ieee 
with a little rain, were clear, and remarkably fine. 
Another novel circumstance was the firmness of the wind in the 
north for so long a period, and the approach of the shower from that 
quarter. A thunder shower in central New York from the north isa 
very rare occurrence, not witnessed oftener perhaps than once in fifteen 
years. The most common point of their appearance is from W, to 
8. W., eight out of ten perhaps rising within that part of the h 
ation has shown, that whatever may be the course of the Jower 
‘currents of air, (and no less than four have been distinctly noticed, ex- 
isting at the same time,) the upper is almost invariably from the west; — 
and from some cause not perhaps as yet well understood, thunder “arr 
rarely deviate essentially from this direction. 
» Another remarkable feature of the shower was the total absence of 
‘any wind, so far as we observed, or have heard. ‘The clouds moved 
very slowly; the rain poured down perpendicularly, and there were 
none of those fitful gusts, or sudden changes, that generally mark the 
violence and. Se eee showers. Very little conaaae 
: observ: observed i ine ine, rey although the con 
