WINTER STORMS. 181 
for they are observed to be subsequent on long con- 
tinued drought, and to be productive of very 
considerable reduction of thermometric heat, more 
so I believe than attends ordinary descents of rain 
in the hotter months, which tend so pleasantly 
to cool down the atmosphere, and so gratefully to 
renew the vigour of every thing which has life. 
But “ thunder storms” with their attendant 
deluges of rain, act in a more decided manner and 
on a weightier scale,—creating a degree of cold, 
which only the solar influence of several succeeding 
days suffices to remove. From the elevation of the 
Dartmoor hills, thunder clouds are in the rainy 
season driven much towards them, and are there 
intercepted. Of the fury of a moorland storm, we 
are assured none but they who have witnessed it 
can entertain a just idea. More than two hundred 
years ago, in October, a most terrific and awful 
thunder cloud broke over the church of Widdecombe- 
in-the-Moor ; the lightning did damage to the 
amount of several hundred pounds, besides killing 
or injuring many persons. It seems that something 
like a meteorolite (in all likelihood one of the 
- gaseous kind) accompanied the bursting of this 
cloud. The circumstances drew great attention at 
the time, and they were on several occasions printed.* 
The exposure of the Channel causes it to be par- 
ticularly dangerous to shipping during storms, and 
it is observable, that gales from the southern direc- 
tions are often followed most suddenly by furious 
blasts from north-west, the wind rapidly veering 
round to that quarter, thus exposing shipping to 
double danger. A remote consequence and use of 
winter storms seems to be the clearing of forests 
of superfluous timber, and such as has been the 
subject of natural decay. 
*“ Guide to Scenery of Ashburton,” by J. P. Jones, p. 38, et seq. 
