200 Efects of Lightning at Chapelhill. By Jas. Hardy 



Glatjcous Gull (Laurus glaucus). — A young bird, sex not 

 noted, was sliot at Eyemouth, on 19th December, 1882, and was 

 sent in the flesh to Mr Small for preservation. 



Btjpfon's Skua {Lestris Bujfonu). — A beautiful male bird of 

 this species was shot by Mr Broadwood at Dunbar in June, 1881, 

 and sent in to Mr Small to be preserved. It screamed on being 

 struck by the shot — a circumstance I had before remarked in con- 

 nection with the occurrence of the bird elsewhere. 



Edinburgh, July, 1883. 



On the Effects of Lightning in Smelting and Altering Gravel 

 at Chapelhill, Gockhurnspath, 10th July, 1882. By James 

 Hardy. 



A thunder-storm on the 10th July, 1882, at Chapelhill, Cock- 

 burnspath, was attended by circumstances almost unprecedented 

 in such electrical discharges. About half-past ten a.m. prelim- 

 inary to a loud sharp peal of thunder, the lightning struck about 

 three feet square of the gravel in front of the farm-house, smelted 

 a portion of it into lava-like slags, and converted other portions 

 into black vesicular light-weighted cinders, without amalgamat- 

 ing them into masses. It. lifted many of these, at the same time, 

 and drove them forward to the base of the front-wall of the 

 house, and transported the smaller pellets, as if impelled by a 

 gust of wind, and scattered them for several yards over a grassy 

 plot round the east corner of the dwelling. The gravel is a com- 

 pact fine-grained greywacke, with some flinty slate, which is a 

 constituent of veins, and bits of porphyrite. In the slag state 

 the substance is nearly homogeneous, with the exception of some 

 white streaks that appear to be quartz. In one instance a bird's 

 eye speck of quartz remains unaltered, set in a thoroughly fused 

 combination. When fractured most of the fragments glitter, 

 and have become iridescent. Vein-stones, although vitrified ex- 

 ternally, are less, or scarcely perceptibly changed internally: 

 these have had a surplus of siliceous matter in their composition. 

 Some portions might be called a volcanic ash ; others show that 

 greywacke, if melted under pressure, or other peculiar conditions, 

 might become a dark-coloured trap, or might even assume the 

 colour and aspect of hematite. Concretions of red hematite, 

 when found in tlie fields, are popularly called " thunder-bolts ;" 



