AIR : WINDS, STORMS. 17 



Anno 1581, there fell hail-stones at Dogdeane, near Salisbury, as big as a child's fist of three or 

 four yeares old ; which is mentioned in the Preface of an Almanack by John Securis, Maister of Arts 



and Physick, dedicated to Lord High Chancellor. He lived at Salisbury. 'Tis pitty such 



accidents are not recorded in other Almanacks in order for a history of the weather. 



Edward Saintlow, of Knighton, Esq. was buried hi the church of Broad Chalk, May the 6th, 1578, 

 as appeares by the Register booke. The snow did then lie so thick on the ground that the bearers 

 carried his body over the gate in Knighton field, and the company went over the hedges, and 

 they digged a way to the church porch. I knew some ancient people of the parish that did 

 remember it. On a May day, 1655 or 1656, being then in Glamorganshire, at Mr. Jo. Aubrey's 

 at Llanchrechid, I saw the mountaines of Devonshire all white with snow. There fell but little in 

 Glamorganshire. 



From the private Chronologicall Notes of the learned Edward Davenant, of Gillingham, D.D. : 

 " On the 25th of July 1670, there was a rupture in the steeple of Steeple Ashton by lightning. 

 The steeple was ninety-three feet high above the tower ; which was much about that height. This 

 being mending, and the last stone goeing to be putt in by the two master work emeu, on the 15th day 

 of October following, a sudden storme with a clap of thunder tooke up the steeple from the tower, 

 and killed both the workmen in nictu oculi. The stones fell in and broke part of the church, but 

 never hurt the font. This account I had from Mr. Walter Sloper, attorney, of Clement's Inne, and 

 it is registred on the church wall." [The inscription will be found in the Beauties of Wiltshire, 

 vol. iii. page 205. It fully details the above circumstances. J. B.] 



Whilst the breaches were mending and the thunder showr arose, one standing in the church-yard 

 observed a black cloud to come sayling along towards the steeple, and called to the workman as he 

 was on the scaffold ; and wislit him to beware of it and to make hast. But before he went off the 

 clowd came to him, and with a terrible crack threw down the steeple, sc. about the middle, where he 

 was at worke. Immediately they lookt up and their steeple was lost. 



I doe well remember, when I was seaven yeares old, an oake in a ground called Rydens, in 

 Kington St. Michael Parish, was struck with lightning, not in a strait but helical line, sell, once about 

 the tree or once and a half, as a hop twists about the pole ; and the stria remains now as if it had 

 been made with a gouge. 



On June 3rd, 1647, (the day that Cornet Joyce did carry King Charles I. prisoner to the Isle of 

 Wight from Holdenby,) did appeare this phenomenon, [referring to a sketch in the margin which 

 represents two luminous circles, intersecting each other ; the sun being seen in the space formed by 

 their intersection. J. B.] which continued from about ten a clock in the morning till xii. It was a 

 very cleare day, and few took notice of it because it was so near the sunbeams. It was seen at 

 Broad Chalke by my mother, who espied it going to see what a clock it was at an horizontal dial, 

 and then all the servants about the house sawe it. Also Mr. Jo. Sloper the vicar here sawe it 

 with his family, upon the like occasion looking on the diall. Some of S r . George Vaughan of 

 Falston's family who were hunting sawe it. The circles were of a rainbowe colour: the two 

 filats, that crosse the circle (I presume they were segments of a third circle) were of a pale colour. 



Ignis fatuus, called by the vulgar Kit of the Candlestick, is not very rare on our downes about 

 Michaelmass. [These ignes fatui, or Jack-o'-lanthorns, as they are popularly called, are frequently 



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