32 J. F. Miller, Esq., on the 



mark at spring tides, as may be supposed from the northern line of 

 railway intervening between the sea and the cliffs. The lighthouse 

 keeper was imprisoned in his domicile on the West Pier (which was 

 constantly deluged by the waves) throughout the previous night, and 

 till 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The calculated height of the tide 

 was 16 ft. 1 in., but about the time of high water, (ll h 56 m a.m.) it 

 v~)sc to 24 ft., so that the waters of the Channel were elevated 8 feet 

 by the force of the wind alone. Although a spring tide, vessels were 

 afloat in our harbour at low water. The shipbuilding yards were 

 completely flooded, the palings were washed down, and many thousand 

 feet of timber were floating about, no small quantity of which (in- 

 cluding several logs of not less than 30 feet in length) was carried 

 away by the receding tide. In one yard, the keel of a vessel which 

 had just been laid down, was washed from the stocks, and two vessels 

 were completely wrecked a little to the north of the harbour. The 

 Whitehaven Junction Railway sustained damage to the amount of 

 £3000, by the washing down of the massive masonry constituting 

 its protecting sea-wall. About 120 yards of the wall were carried 

 away. A striking illustration of the force of the waves is furnished 

 by the fact, that the pigs of iron with which a small vessel, stranded 

 lately to the north of the harbour, had been laden, were driven right 

 up against the North Pier, a distance of several hundred yards from 

 the portion of the beach on which they had previously been lying, 

 When the great weight of the iron pigs in proportion to the small- 

 ness of the surface presented by them to the action of the water, is 

 borne in mind, this fact will be deemed significant. At Maryport, 

 the wooden pier and cast-iron lighthouse were completely carried 

 away, and the massive logs of timber forming the piles of the pier 

 were snapped off near the ground like so many desiccated sticks. At 

 Flimby, near Maryport, a heavy boat was taken up by the wind, and 

 carried completely over the railway embankment into an adjoining 

 field. I am informed by Mr Hartnup, that the maximum horizon- 

 tal force of the wind at the Liverpool Observatory, was forty-two 

 pounds on the square foot, on the mornings both of the 25th and 27th. 

 That faithful premonitor (when properly understood) of meteoro- 

 logical changes, the Bnrometer, gave ample and significant warning 

 of some extraordinary atmospheric commotion, on the preceding even- 

 ing or night. At 3 p.m., on the 26th, the mercury stood at 29-296. 

 I did not again particularly attend to its movements till just before 

 retiring to rest at ll h 50 m , when the column was read off at 28*696, 

 it having fallen -074 in the previous twenty minutes ; indeed, such was 

 the rapidity with which the column fell, that the descent of the mer- 

 cury was almost sensible to the visual organs ; certainly, an appre- 

 ciable change was perceptible in each consecutive minute of time. At 

 9 o'clock on the following morning, the column stood at 28-220 ! ! at 

 noon, at 28-382, at 3 p.m., 28-802, and at midnight, at 29-162; 

 the column having fluctuated through a space of 2-018 inches in 



