Recent Atmospheric Disturbances in British 
Guiana. 
By Samuel Vyle, Government Electrician, 
HE old time records of Demerara do not con- 
tain much information as to speciai distur- 
bances of the atmosphere, at any particular 
period of the year, though it would appear that thunder 
and lightning were the usual accompaniments of the 
change from wet to dry, or vice versa. Lately however— 
in faét since the laying of the Telegraph Cable to 
Bartica—disturbances of an exceptionally severe chara€ter 
have been noticed in the neighbourhood of Bartica and 
Her Majesty’s Penal Settlement, at the mouth of the 
Massaruni. The rise of these disturbances is as a rule 
very sudden, being invariably the ending of a sudden 
heavy storm of rain, which breaks with fury upon a 
hitherto cloudless sky. The rain-drops have a most 
peculiar appearance, almost like partially thawed hail- 
stones. Now it is known that hail generates ele€tricity, 
and the condition of the rain drops referred to suggests 
the idea that probably aétual hail began to fall; but in 
descending from the higher and colder atmosphere, to 
our hot tropical one, it became partially melted, yet not 
sufficiently so as to entirely disguise its form. 
But, whatever may be the cause, it is certain that from 
June to September there are at what might be termed the 
foot of the hills of the colony, some of the most brilliant 
displays of lightning to be witnessed in any part of the 
world, The Instruments used to protect the Telegraph 
¥Y¥ 
