Royal Society of Edinburgh. 155 
| Number of Stations | Mean Number of 
at which Lightning Times at each 
was seen. - Station. 
mete 24 4 | 
mie 86 5 | 
umes 65. 85 fi 
2 eT 91 7 
OT a a 54 3 
_ September, . . 31 3 
) ae 
pemOcteber, ) .. 50 8 
| November, . . 30 4 
peitecomber, © .  . | 37 4 
| 
The storm, then, was anomalous in its season of occurrence, and 
in its violence ; also, as it would appear from the newspaper accounts, 
by the regularity and broad spread of its passage over the country 
from west to east, occurring nearly an hour earlier at Greenock than 
at Aberdeen or Edinburgh. In Glasgow and its neighbourhood 
several buildings were struck, a tall chimney and a church entirely 
ruined; a lodging-house of operatives injured in every floor; and 
a large number of the telegraph instruments of the Private Tele- 
graph Company thrown out of order, and one clerk rendered 
senseless. 
This storm began in Edinburgh about 7* p.m., and lasted nearly an 
hour; it came with very strong west wind, and accompaniments of 
rain and hail; and it was described to me by Mr Wallace, who was 
on the Calton Hill at the time, as being most remarkable for the 
slanting, almost horizontal, direction of the lightning, as well as 
its greenish-blue colour. The thunder was at the same time deafen- 
ingly loud, and on one occasion apparently coincident with the flash; 
_ shaking the house he was in (the old Observatory Tower), and 
giving the idea that either that building, or the Royal Observatory, 
must have been struck. Going out immediately to see what might 
have happened, he met the servant at the door, who spoke of the 
flash of lightning having: entered the lowest room of that tower, 
‘‘ gone half way across the floor,” and left an overpowering smell 
of “brimstone” behind; and also called his attention to Nelson’s 
Monument, about 200 yards east-south-east of them, being appa- 
rently on fire, because sparks were issuing from the roof of one of 
the low rooms at its foot, on the western side. 
Now, at the winter period of the year, it seems that the tenant 
there (Mrs ) finding the above monumental building very 
cold, prefers to live in a wooden house close by, and on the evening 
of the 4th of February she was in that house ill and in bed; but 
when the particular flash occurred which had been so much noticed 
by Mr Wallace and the Observatory servant, it seemed close to her 
