VOL. XLII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 583 



them. It was therefore imagined, that this might possibly be a burying-place 

 of the Danes, who, it is generally owned, were descendants of those people. 

 On opening some of these tumuli, some few bones were found, but mostly in 

 a petrified state. The tumuli are from 8 to Q yards in diameter, at their 

 bases. 



Concerning some extraordinary Effects of Lightning. By tJie Right Hon. Robert 

 James Lord Petre, F.R.S, N° 464, p. 136. 



One Tuesday morning, June 32, 1742, between 3 and 4 o'clock, we had at 

 Thorndon some of the most terrible thunder ever heard. It beat down a 

 chimney at a farm-house just by, and the lightning also struck two large oaks 

 in the park, which stand about 40 or 50 feet apart. It seems remarkable, that 

 the greatest damage appears to be done on the east side of one tree, though it 

 is certain that the storm all came from the south-west. This tree is extremely 

 shattered, and split from the top to the bottom ; and on the south-west side, 

 just by the root, there is a large hole made in the ground, about 6 or 7 inches 

 diameter, and about 12 or 15 inches deep. But in the other tree still there is 

 something more particular ; for there, without shattering or splitting the tree 

 in the least, or so much as disturbing a single branch, though there are a great 

 many on it, the lightning has taken off the bark about 5 inches wide, in a com- 

 plete spiral line, from about 40 feet high, down to within about a foot of the 

 ground, where the width diminishes to about 2 inches, and so goes quite off: 

 in the centre of the 5 inches, it has entered the wood about 4 of an inch deep, 

 and about an inch and half wide : this hollow it has in great part cleared out 

 entirely, and the rest is left hanging like pieces of broken or untwisted ropes ; 

 this hollow also diminishes near the ground, and dies quite out exactly at the 

 ground : the spiral line is exactly regular, and goes just once round the tree, or 

 but very little more, and is exactly of an equal width all the way. The surface 

 of the bark of both the trees is remarkably touched for about 10 feet from the 

 ground, as if it were shot all over with small-shot, each of which seems to have 

 taken off little scales or outside pieces of the bark, from an inch and half or 2 

 inches broad and long, to a quarter of an inch. 



Of a Meteor seen at Peck ham, Dec. 11, 1741. By Thomas Milner, M. D. 



N° 464, p. 138. 



Dec. 11, 1741, at 7 minutes past one in the afternoon, a globe of light, 



somewhat larger than the horizontal full moon, and as bright as the moon ap- 



. pears at any time while the sun is above the horizon, instantaneously appeared, 



in a clear blue sky, about the s. s e. moving towards the east with a continual 



