TOunfrer anfr Xt^btntng 115 



The storm clouds began to arrive from the south at 

 nine o'clock that morning and an hour and a half 

 later rain was falling from a lowering sky filled with 

 flying scud. 



By noon it was raining faster than ever, and blowing 

 hard. In short, it rained and blew all'd.ay. The halo 

 won. But how deceptive that red sunset ! 



THUNDER AND LIGHTNING 



In the late Spring of 1914, one Friday evening, 

 there was a wonderfully brilliant display of lightning 

 in London. I witnessed it throughout from the Stock- 

 well side of Clapham Road. The lightning was visible 

 in the west for fully an hour before the faintest rumble 

 of thunder was heard. Several flashes, from my view- 

 point, were exactly behind the spire of St. Michael's 

 Church, Stockwell Park Road, and brought out the 

 tall, tapering structure in weird relief against a dazzling 

 background of steel-blue fire. Once, what seemed to 

 be a large mass of globular lightning burst fairly 

 behind the middle portion of the spire and produced 

 the effect of the sun being blown to atoms and leaving 

 black darkness behind. The greater number of the 

 flashes were of the wriggling, vertical type, intensely 

 vivid, and appearing in such quick succession as to 

 keep the sky in a constant quiver of light. When the 

 thunder had once started, it rolled continuously for 

 half an hour on end. 



It was astonishing to see the risks some people ran, 

 only to escape unharmed. I saw several women 



