By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



385 



weight of a single hail-stone; and that they have on several oc- 

 casions caused great loss of life among cattle, and have sometimes 

 been fatal to human beings. I may instance the great storm of 

 Peshawur, in the Himalayas, in May 1853, when eighty-four hu- 

 man beings, and three thousand oxen were killed, the hail-stones 

 being hard, compact, and spherical, and measuring nearly a foot 

 in circumference : and that at Naine Tal, in the Lower Himalayas, 

 in May 1855, where some of the stones weighed above a pound and 

 a half, exceeded the dimensions of a cricket ball, struck down men 

 and animals, unroofed houses, and destroyed trees. I have the 

 greater confidence in adducing the particulars of this latter storm, 

 because they are abundantly corroborated by a near relative of my 

 own, who was an eye witness to their occurrence. But to return 

 to our storm in North Wilts. 



I regret that I have no means of ascertaining the precise amount 

 of rain which fell during the hurricane, but that a very copious 

 discharge then took place is certain, and by way of obtaining the 

 nearest information on this head within my reach, I have instituted 

 enquiries at all the mills near which it passed, and from one and all 

 I derive the same reply, that the rise of the water was both greater 

 and more sudden than was ever remembered on any former occasion 

 of other heavy rains : this is the unanimous opinion of the millers 

 at Cherhill, Quemerford, and Blacklands Mills, where, though 

 within a mile of the source of the stream which turned them, it 

 was found necessary to draw the hatches and stop the works for a 

 time, on account of the rush of water which bore down with irre- 

 sistible fury immediately after the storm had passed by. 



I believe that I have now examined every phenomenon attending 

 our great storm : that it has been most disastrous in its effects, and 

 that the destruction of property occasioned by it has been very con- 

 siderable, there can be no doubt ; but the greatest, because the ir- 

 reparable, loss consists in the overthrow of so large a number of our 

 finest trees, for it may readily be conceived that in the bleak down 

 district, every large tree is of unspeakable value as a shelter from 

 the wind. But though in these high exposed situations, we are 

 often assailed by boisterous breezes, yet in the memory of the oldest 

 inhabitant no tradition of anything resembling such a hurricane 



