Meteorology of Whitehaven. 29 



throughout England in this quarter was 2-227 per cent., which is 

 slightly above the average of the season. The excess of deaths was 

 chiefly in the town districts, which still maintain their fatal pre- 

 eminence in destroying the lives of the population.' 1 



July and August. — The characters of these months have already 

 been given. On the afternoon of the 16th of July, there was a fine 

 prismatic solar halo, and another in the evening, which were fol- 

 lowed at night by an awful storm of thunder, lightning, rain, and 

 hail, when \\ inch of rain fell in little more than an hour. On 

 the 14th, the thermometer rose to 83 degrees in the shade. The 

 mean complement of the dew-point was 10°, shewing a very low 

 degree of humidity in the air. The mean temperature of August 

 is 1°'51 above its average value. Of the numerous and very frightful 

 thunder-storms which occurred in this and the previous month, one 

 was so remarkable in its effects, that I venture to give a few parti- 

 culars respecting it. 



August \0th. — " A dreadful storm of thunder, lightning, and 

 rain, almost directly over the town (Whitehaven), between 8 and 

 11 o'clock this morning. During the height of the storm, the 

 lightning entered the chimney of a house in Senhouse Street (at- 

 tracted probably by an iron weathercock with which the chimney 

 was surmounted), and pierced the wall, passed through an attic, 

 descended by way of the staircase to the floor of the room beneath, 

 passed through the floor, descended to the shop and kitchen,- and 

 finally expended its force on the cellar beneath. In its progress, it 

 tore a beading from a door-case on the second floor, hurling a por- 

 tion of it, from which two nails protruded, against another door on 

 the opposite side of the room, to which it became firmly attached by 

 the nails. The fluid also struck down a woman and child who were 

 entering the room by the first-mentioned door, shattered the shop- 

 door, knocked down a young man who was passing the doorway at 

 the moment, passed through the clock-case, and communicated a 

 severe shock to a female in the kitchen, struck a boy who was sitting in 

 the cellar with a child on his knee, and hurled boy and child to oppo- 

 site sides of the room. Thus, independently of the female who was 

 stunned in the kitchen, five persons in the house out of nine which 

 it contained at the time, were prostrated by the fluid, and all at the 

 same instant, — none of whom sustained any permanent injury. The 

 spot at which the lightning passed through the second floor is indicated 

 by a circular orifice nearly half an inch in diameter, the edges of which 

 indicate the action of intense heat." A few days before, the light- 

 ning descended on the gable end of a farm-house called " Game- 

 rigg," near this town, from which several cart-loads of stones were 

 dislodged, and projected into the interior of the building. 



September. — A fine, mild, and dry month. The temperature is 

 o, 45 above its average value, and the complement of the dew-point 

 is o, 5 greater than in August. Rain fell on ten days only. Hoar- 



