112 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1757- 



These tubes have still some marks of sponginess at particular distances which, 

 as they come to join together, form those irregular cross-lines that surround 

 the stem in several places. See fig. a. The sponginess of the knobby joints 

 occasions that excessive brittleness in the lesser branches ; which accounts for 

 the difficulty, which Rumphius mentions, of getting good specimens of this 

 beautiful coral. 



XXIV. Effects of a Storm at IVigton in Cumberland. By Mr. T. Thomlinson. 



p. 194. 



On the 6th of Oct. 1756, at night, happened a most violent hurricane, such 

 as has not been known in these parts in any one's memory. It lasted 4 hours at 

 least, from about 11 till 3. The damage it has done is very deplorable. The 

 corn has suffered prodigiously. Stacks of hay and corn have been entirely 

 swept away : houses unroofed, and in several places driven down by its fury : 

 trees without number torn up by the roots ; others snapt off by the middles, and 

 their fragments scattered over the adjoining fields. Some were twisted almost 

 round, or split down to the very ground ; and, in short, left in such a shattered, 

 mangled condition, as scarcely any description can give an adequate idea of. The 

 change in the face of the country was very surprising in one single night : for, 

 to complete the dismally-desolate scene, the several tribes of vegetables (in all 

 their verdure the day before,) as if blasted with aethereal fire, hung down their 

 drooping heads. Every herb, every plant, every flower, had its leaves withered, 

 shrivell^ up, and turned black. The leaves on the trees, especially on the 

 weather side, fared in the same manner. The evergreens alone seem to have 

 escaped. The grass also, in a few days time, recovered itself in a great measure. 



Mr. T. agreed at first with the generality of people in their opinion, that 

 lightning had done all this mischief: but on recollecting that there had not been 

 much seen any where, in many places none at all, but that the effect was ge- 

 neral, as far as ever the wind had reached ; he began to think that some other 

 cause might probably be assigned. Accordingly, he examined the dew or rain, 

 which had fallen on the grass, windows, &c. in hopes of being enabled, by its 

 taste, to form some better judgment of the sulphureous or nitrous particles, or 

 of whatever other quality they were, with which the air was so strongly impreg- 

 nated that night, as to produce such strange effects. Nor was he deceived in 

 his expectations : for on tasting it, he found it as brackish as any sea-water. 

 The several vegetables also which he tasted were all salt, more or less, and 

 continued so for 5 or 6 days after ; the saline particles not being then washed 

 off, from the corn and windows in particular ; the latter of which, when the 

 moisture on the outside was exhaled next day, sparkled and appeared exceed- 

 ingly brilliant in the sunshine. This saltness he conceived bad done the prin- 



