432 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I7O8. 



the two that were withirv the tilt, sat on each hand of a woman who received 

 no damage : one person had the sole of his shoe unripped from the upper 

 leather, but no hurt. There was another boat that followed them, but it re- 

 ceived no damage ; the master of which affirms, that he saw the fire light on 

 the bow-sprit of the former boat, where, meeting with a small resistance, it 

 flew into small streams like a rocket, part into the boat, part into the water ; 

 which might be the cause of the mischief being done in so many different parts 

 of the boat; and does in some measure solve the seeming difficulty of the 

 woman's being unhurt between the two persons that were killed. 



Concerning the Effects of the ahovementioned Storm of Thunder and Lightning 

 at Colchester, By Mr. Jos. Nelson. N° 316, p. 140. 



On Friday July l6, 17O8, about 8 o'clock at night, I heard a thunder-crack 

 so loud, as if it were close to me, and such as I never heard before ; at which 

 time the thunder and lightning broke into Mr. King's house, beginning at the 

 south-side at the gable-end, breaking several roof-tiles, and continuing its 

 course in a perpendicular straight Hne, it entered into the strong-beer buttery 

 through the laths, and forced a cork out of the lower tap-hole of a butt ; in 

 its way, it shivered a stud about three inches square, so that one side remained 

 nailed to laths, yet not much thicker than a lath, and also broke it in two. 

 Below the beam it clave or split a stud, about 4 inches square, several feet 

 downwards, caused by its violent grazing on the outside, attended with a strong 

 sulphureous smell. It threw the broken wall to several rods distance. Some 

 damage was also done to Allhallow's church in the said town. 



About the same time some boats were carrying persons from Harwich to 

 Ipswich on the Orwell ; when the violence of the thunder and lightning killed 

 four of them dead immediately, made a young lad go mad, and wounded the 

 rest that were in that boat, being 12 in number; it melted a watch and the 

 chain all of a lump, which was in one of the dead men's pockets. There was 

 an intolerable smell of sulphur. This was about 18 miles N.E of Colchester; 

 but at only one mile S.E. it was no more violent than an ordinary storm. 



On the Manuring of Land in Devonshire with Sea-Sand. By Dr. Arthur 



Bury. N°3l6, p. 142. 



The burning of the surface of the land is so much practised in Devonshire, 

 that it is elsewhere known by the name of Devonshiring ; but it is used only 

 for bad lands, and by worse husbandmen ; for it robs the ground, as the arch- 

 bishop of Dublin remarks in N° 3 1 3, Phil. Trans. 



