and extra ordinary Electrical Phenomena. 333 



direction in which the storm above described had raged, was 

 also visited by a violent storm of thunder and lightning ; the 

 lightning was intensely vivid, and the peals of thunder fol- 

 lowed each other in rapid succession : several accidents oc- 

 curred, but no fatal cases are recorded. At Sankey, a little 

 to the north-west of Warrington, a stack of hay was set on 

 fire by the lightning, and a large quantity burnt before the 

 flames were extinguished. A flat sailing on the canal was 

 also set on fire by the same cause, but the damage done was 

 not extensive. This storm appears to have been limited to a 

 comparatively small district. 



About six o'clock the same evening a storm of thunder and 

 lightning accompanied with heavy rain commenced about ten 

 miles to the west of Warrington, and proceeded in a south- 

 easterly direction. After crossing the river Mersey near 

 Runcorn and Weston Point, it passed up the valley of the 

 river Weaver towards Northwich, a town situated ten miles 

 south of Warrington. At Anderton, about a mile short of 

 the town, the lightning struck a stack of hay and set it on fire, 

 but the torrents of rain soon extinguished it. At Witton to 

 the east, and Leftwich to the south, and both immediately ad- 

 joining Northwich, it appears as if a discharge of electricity 

 had struck three places at one and the same time; viz. a cot- 

 tage near the toll-bar in Witton was struck, but not much 

 damaged; a church in Leftwich was also struck, and a quan- 

 tity of stone broken and forced off the gable-end by the light- 

 ning, which passed from thence to a gutter and down a metal 

 spout to the ground ; the third was a poplar-tree in Leftwich, 

 which was shivered at the top and down the trunk to the 

 ground. In about an hour afterwards the spire of Davenham 

 Church, situated two miles to the south, was also struck by 

 the lightning ; it first came in contact with a wind-vane at the 

 top of the spire, after which it passed down a copper rod 

 about two inches diameter inserted through the solid stone- 

 work for several yards, with a screw and nut at the bottom to 

 hold the masonry together ; and when it got to the lower end 

 of the metal, left it and made a large hole in the spire about 

 two yards long and one foot wide ; it then proceeded along 

 the masonry to the bottom of the spire, where it made another 

 large opening in the stone-work, from whence it immediately 

 entered the tower; here an iron pipe or smoke-flue on the 

 outside of the tower served as a conductor for the lightning, 

 which was conveyed without injury to the building as far as 

 the metal went ; but where it terminated, towards the bottom 

 of the tower, some damage was done to the stone-work before 

 the lightning entered the ground. 



