480 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I7O9. 



Concerning some Roman Antiquities found in Yorkshire \ and a Storm ofThnn- 



der^ Lightning, and Rain, that happened there. By Mr. Ra, Tuoreshy, 



F.R.S, N°319, p. 289. 



One of the three Roman monuments lately found at Adellocum, has been 

 evidently an altar, liaving the discus or hearth very plain on the top ; another, 

 though made exactly in the form of an altar in all other respects, yet wants the 

 discus or lanx on the top, and I have never yet seen any altar, without one ; it 

 seems too small also, (being only 1 8 inches high and 6 broad) for a com- 

 memorative monument ; the three rolls or wreaths on the top, are so entire, that 

 it is plain there never was any thing else wrought upon it : now whether any of 

 the Roman arae, or altaria, were made without a discus or hearth, is what I 

 desire to know. 



The more immediate occasion of this is to acquaint you with some of the 

 effects of a late storm of thunder, lightning, and violent rain, which happened 

 the 5th day of the last month (Aug. 17O8). I was then at the Spa at Harrow- 

 gate, near Knaresborough ; where having a spacious view on the open forest, I 

 observed the motion of the clouds and storm, which began in the west, wheeled 

 about, by the north and east, to the south : when night drew on, the lightning 

 appeared dreadful, the intermission between the flashes being very small, and 

 the claps of thunder very loud. The lightning burnt down a barn near Scarbo- 

 rough. One Thomas Horner, with others, flying from the violence of the 

 rain, which seemed rather to fall in spouts than drops, took shelter in a neigh- 

 bouring barn ; from whence, after several dreadful thunder-claps, they were 

 driven by the bolt, as they termed it, but really the lightning ; which singed 

 the hair of the said Thomas Horner, threw another man backwards, who was 

 climbing up the hay-mow, left a sulphureous stench behind it, and at length 

 burnt down the barn and hay. As to the inundation, it was surprising; it tore 

 up much of the road, and street, from the church to the bridge, and made 

 pits in some places several yards deep, threw down part of a barn and a stable, 

 and rushed into most of the houses in the town : in some the water was as high 

 as the soles of the windows, and blocked up the door of one house with gravel, 

 almost to the very top : several persons were in great danger, but only one 

 woman drowned; she was hurried away by the violence of the stream, and not 

 found till the 4th day after: it removed the bole of a large oak several yards off; 

 bore down the most part of 4 wooden bridges ; and has left at the end of 

 the great stone bridge, or within about 100 yards of it, as much gravel, &c. as 

 is computed at above 1000 cart loads; one neighbour gives 10 pounds for re- 

 moving the stones and gravel left in a small tract of ground. This seems very 



