702 PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1712. 



Extract of a Letter from the late Mr. Edw. Lhwyd to Dr. Tancred Robinson ; 

 giving an Account of some uncommon Plants growing about Pensance and St. 

 Ives in Cornwall. Dated Pensance, Sept. 22, 17OO. N° 336, p. 527- 



I have hitherto met with no birds or fish here, which I consider as unde- 

 scribed : only two or three stellae, and some other exanguia marina have oc- 

 curred, which I have not seen before on our British coasts. We have also met 

 with the capillus veneris verus in abundance on the sea clifts about St. Ives. 

 2. Dr. Sherard's scrophularia scorodoniae folio. 3. Blattaria lutea ; an lutea 

 minor Park.? But the leaves of ours are not jagged : also all the plants men- 

 tioned by Mr. Ray to grow here ; excepting the gnaphalium marinum, which 

 should grow near this town ; and two or three more, which being at some 

 distance, we have not looked for. We have also found some fuci, which per- 

 haps may be new: and I am told the fishermen sometimes take up the corallina 

 marina reticulata by their hooks ; but I have not yet seen one of them. 



Account of a Storm of Thunder and Lightning at Samford- Courtney in Devon- 

 shire, Oct. 7, 1711. By John Chamberlayne, Esq. F. R. S. N° 336, p. 528. 



In the parish of Samford-Courtney, near Oakhampton in Devon, on the 7th 



of October, about 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon, there was a great darkness 



as the minister was catechising the children, so that he could hardly see with 



spectacles : several people being in the church porch, of a sudden a great fire- 



■ball fell in among them, and threw them some one way, some another ; but no 



one was hurt. The ringers in the belfry said, they never knew the bells go so 



heavy, and were obliged to leave off: and being very weary, and looking out of 



the belfry into the church, they saw 4 fire-balls a little larger than a man's fist, 



which of a sudden broke to pieces ; so that the church was full of fire and 



smoke. One man received a blow in the neck, which caused him to bleed both 



at nose and mouth. He says, that the fire and smoke went up into the tower, 



and broke a large beam on which one of the bells hung, and the gudgeon 



breaking, the bell fell on the floor. It likewise carried away one of the pina- 



cles of the tower next the town, and threw some of the stones near a barn door 



at a pretty distance from the church, and has done some damage to the barn at 



one end. The chimney of the house was removed in such a manner by the 



thunder and lightning, that the people were surprised that it continued to 



stand. 



