Anniversary Address. 25 



people at the cottages informed me that when the tree was 

 struck, the noise occasioned by the rending of the trunk 

 made them believe that the houses were coming down about 

 their ears. Several houses were struck at Chirnside, East 

 Blanerne, and Coldstream, during this storm, and sheep and 

 other animals killed. Ash trees are considered to be most 

 liable to be struck with lightning. On the road-side, not a 

 mile from where this tree was struck, two ash trees were in 

 former thunderstorms stripped of their bark ; and a plane 

 tree, close to the village, was so seriously injured that it 

 had to be cut down. No one can fail to be struck with the 

 might of the lightning. I saw this tree an hour or so after 

 it had been struck. The bark in large pieces was hurled 

 three hundred yards into a neighbouring field, and the tree 

 rent and fissured in a curious manner. I also saw an elm 

 on another occasion, immediately after the lightning had torn 

 off the bark, which hung in long ribbands from the top of the 

 stem to the base of the trunk. Of course the tree was killed, 

 and had to be cut down. 



As work done by a member of the Club, I may mention 

 Mr. James A. H. Murray's learned book, " On the Dialects of 

 the Southern Counties of Scotland," which evinces extensive 

 knowledge of the subject of the Border language. Mr. Murray 

 has also edited for " The Early English Text Society," 

 •'• The Complaynt of Scotlande," A.D. 1549, a work which 

 Leyden rendered famous by his preliminary Dissertation. 

 Mr. Murray has prefixed a new introduction, incorporating 

 what was worth preserving in Leyden's, but transfusing 

 throughout the results of more recent and exact research. 

 In a letter to Mr. Hardy, Mr. Murray suggests that some of 

 our members might perhaps be induced " to take to the 

 examination of the Northumberland and Durham dialects — 

 which differ so little from that of Teviotdale, that Prince 

 Lucien Bonaparte in his recent ' Hints on the Classification 

 of the English Dialects,' makes them one with it under the 

 heading of the ' Scotch of England,' as distinguished from the 



