210 Miscellanies. 



I trust, through the medium of your Journal, this will meet the eyes 

 of some who are engaged in locomotive machinery, and will test my 

 plan on a large scale. F. G. Woodwaed. 



16. Destructive Thunder Shower. — The thunder storm of the eve- 

 ning of September 14th, 1840, will long be remembered in the counties 

 of Onedia, Madison, and Onondaga, in central New York, for the 

 damage it occasioned in the burning of buildings and the destruction of 

 animal life. There were several circumstances attending this storm, 

 which, from their peculiar character, appear to deserve a particular 

 notice. 



The first of these was the low temperature, which had existed for 

 several days previous, as the following table will show. 



A temperature as low as this, has generally been deemed incompati- 

 ble with the fonnation of thunder showers, much less of such an aston- 

 ishing development of electricity as the evening of the I4th exhibited. 

 All the days noted, with the exception of the first, which was cloudy 

 with a little rain, were clear, and remarkably fine. 



Another novel circumstance was the finxmess of the wind in the 

 north for so long a period, and the approach of the shower from that 

 quarter. A thunder shower in central New York from the north is a 

 very rare occurrence, not witnessed oftener perhaps than once in fifteen 

 years. The most common point of their appearance is from W. to 

 S. W., eight out of ten perhaps rising within that part of the heavens. 

 Observation has shown, that whatever may be the course of the lower 

 currents of air, (and no less than four have been distinctly noticed, ex- 

 isting at the same time,) the upper is almost invariably from the west ; 

 and from some cause not perhaps as yet well understood, thunder storms 

 rarely deviate essentially from this direction. 



Another remarkable feature of the shower was the total absence of 

 any wind, so far as we observed, or have heard. The clouds moved 

 very slowly ; the I'ain poured down perpendicularly, and there were 

 none of those fitful gusts, or sudden changes, that generally mark the 

 violence and duration of our thunder showers. Very little commotion 

 of any kind could be observed in the clouds, although the continued 

 electric blaze showed their whole outlines distinctly. The development 

 of electricity was wholly unprecedented, and considering the low tem- 



