218 THE WEATHER. 



the top of the house, and the balustrades from one end to 

 the other, were all blown down. 



The stabling was all blown down, except two little 

 stalls. All the barns of the parish except those that 

 were full of corn quite up to the top, were blown flat on 

 the ground, to the number of about sixty. The dwelling 

 houses escaped best, there were not above twelve blown 

 down, out of near one hundred. If the storm had lasted 

 five minutes longer, almost every house in the town must 

 have been down ; for they were all in a manner rocked 

 quite off from their underpinings. All the mills in the 

 country were blown down. Hay-stacks and corn-stacks 

 were some quite blown away, some into the next corner 

 of the field. Wherever it met with any boarded houses, 

 it seemed to exert more than ordinary violence on them 

 and scattered their wrecks about a quarter of a mile to 

 the northeast in a line. ' I followed,' says the gentleman 

 who furnished the account, 'one of these wrecks; and 

 about 150 yards from the building, found a piece of 

 a rafter, many feet long, and about six inches by four, 

 stuck upright two feet deep in the ground. At the dis- 

 tanpe of 400 paces from the same building, was an inch 

 board, nine inches broad, fourteen feet long; these boards 

 were carried up into the air, and some were carried over 

 a pond about thirty yards ; and a row of pales as much as 

 two men could lift, were carried two rods from their 

 places, and set upright against an apple tree. Pales in 

 general were all blown down, some posts broke off short 

 by the ground, others torn up by the stumps. The whole 

 air was full of straw; gravel stones as large as the top 

 of my little finger, were blown off the ground in at the 

 windows ; and the very grass was blown quite flat on the 

 ground. After the storm was over I went out into the 

 town, and such a miserable sight I never saw; the havoc 

 above described ; the women and children crying ; the 

 farmers all dejected ; some blessing God for the 

 narrowness of their escape, others wondering how so 

 much mischief could be done with one blast of wind, 

 which hardly lasted long enough for people to get out of 

 their houses. The storm was succeeded by a profound 

 calm, which lasted about an hour, after which the wind 

 continued pretty high till ten o'clock at night.' 



