By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



387 



and the sad loss of life occasioned thereby all round our coasts. The 

 middle of December was no less notorious for the severity of the frost, 

 wherein the thermometer on one occasion sank as low as 1° below 

 Zero, a degree of cold (as I believe) unparalleled within the memory 

 of man, as occurring in this country before Christmas. This was fol- 

 lowed by "the great storm" on December 30th, and that again 

 by such extreme warmth on the 1st January, 1860, that the ther- 

 mometer rose higher on that day than had been recorded for the 

 whole month of January for 17 years, standing at one period of 

 the day at 57° in the shade. Subsequently to this, the reading of 

 the rain guage, for the first four weeks of this year, shows that 

 a greater amount of rain had fallen than within the same period 

 for several years. Again on Tuesday the 17th of January, the sky 

 being perfectly clear and not a cloud to be seen, loud rumblings, 

 resembling a heavy discharge of artillery prolonged for above a 

 minute startled many persons from the strangeness of the sound, 

 and caused all who heard them to look upwards involuntarily. 

 These atmospheric noises were heard by numbers in different parts 

 of the county, at Yatesbury, Berwick, Collingbourne, the Pewsey 

 Yale, on Salisbury Plain, and even (as was stated in the public 

 journals) in the neighbourhoods of Reading and Wantage, and they 

 are supposed by those most capable of forming a correct opinion to 

 have been produced by the passing of a meteor through our atmos- 

 phere, near enough to produce sound, but yet invisible on account 

 of the broad daylight ; or even if it had been near enough to have 

 been within the range of sight, it might have passed unnoticed, 

 as the sound produced would have occupied so long a time in 

 reaching the ear, that the object which caused it would have passed 

 far away from the point to which the sound would direct the eye 

 before the noise could be heard. 1 Since the middle of January we 



1 About ten or twelve years since, a very large meteor was observed in the 

 zenith of Bristol, and it exploded about fifteen miles from the zenith of Bedford, 

 at the estimated height of twenty-one miles, that is, a horizontal distance of about 

 forty miles ; and although the air at that height must be exceedingly rare, yet 

 the report was heard at Oxford like a loud clap of thunder, at between four and 

 five minutes after the explosion had taken place. This meteor gave a light like 

 that of day, and appeared as large as the moon, but it is probable that it would 

 not have been seen in broad daylight. Another meteor fell in 1826 about fifteen 



