'Remarkable Weather. 425 



THE REMARKABLE WEATHER OF THE EARLY 

 SUMMER OF 1864, AT THE HIGHFIELD HOUSE 

 OBSERVATORY. 



BY E. J. LOWE, ESQ., E.R.A.S., ETC. 



The extraordinary heat of May and the equally extraordinary 

 cold of June makes it desirable to place on record this singular 

 weather of 1864. 



On referring bach to old records we find that on Midsummer 

 day, a.d. 1035, so vehement a frost occurred that the crops and 

 fruit were destroyed; that on the 2nd of May, 1767, at Aid- 

 stone and Cole Fall, there was a great fall of snow and hail, 

 the ground being covered in some places to the depth of three 

 feet. In this year (1767), on July 13th, there were great floods 

 in Bedfordshire and Lincolnshire ; on July 4th a prodigious 

 quantity of snow fell in Pomerania; on August 5 th a great 

 storm occurred in . Roxburgh, carrying houses and bridges 

 away; on August 12th, at Leeds, the river rose six feet in an 

 hour, being higher than for twenty years, and destroying forty 

 bridges ; that during the month of May, on the 12th, a dread- 

 ful thunder and hail-storm passed over County Fermanagh ; 

 another on the 16th at Earlstown, Scotland, the hail being 

 four inches in circumference, and on 31st, a third, occurring at 

 Nottingham, Norwich, and London, accompanied by a N.W. 

 gale. In Herefordshire there were fewer apples than for 

 twenty years previously, and scarcely any walnuts. 



In 1773, on May 6th, at Birmingham, snow fell to the 

 depth of twelve inches, followed, from the 18th to the 27th, 

 by the highest floods ever known in May, and which were 

 general throughout England. Earthquakes occurring in Staf- 

 fordshire and Shropshire on the 30th of June and 1st and 2nd 

 of July. 



In 1780, at Nottingham, on May 20th, a severe frost; on 

 the 28th the temperature 75° in shade, on the 29th 81°, and 

 on the 30th only 57°. 



In 1794 the greatest heat and the greatest cold began to 

 be recorded at the Royal Society, and in 1840 at the Royal 

 Observatory, so that for the last seventy years wo have a con- 

 tinuous series of observations, and from others of Dr. Dalton, 

 Mr. Luke Howard, and Mr. Bent, the series can bo extended 

 back to 1785; and a descriptive history as early as 1752, or for 

 113 years, and in no instance has the temperature of tho 18th 

 and 19th May, 1864, been reached, nor the cold of June 1st, 

 1864. 



In order to compare the observations, wo will select Man- 



