388 



The Great Wiltshire Storm. 



have experienced more boisterous winds and a longer continuance of 

 stormy weather than for many years past, the whole of the month 

 of February partaking largely of this character, and another hur- 

 ricane blowing on the 28th of that month, with sufficient force, to 

 overturn two more magnificent elms in Blacklands Park, and several 

 trees here, to scatter the tiles of my cow house, and unroof many 

 cottages, barns and ricks at Cherhill and Yatesbury, which had 

 just been re-thatched; but this storm was not confined to Wilt- 

 shire, nor even to our island, for it seems not only to have swept 

 across the whole breadth of England and Wales, (doing especial 

 damage on the East Coast, where it raged with unwonted violence,) 

 but to have included in its destructive course a great part of the 

 Continent, from the latitude of Berlin to that of Paris. 



I should add that the day of our hurricane was marked 

 throughout by sudden and violent gusts of wind, accompanied with 

 hail and rain in heavy showers ; those who were hunting with the 

 Duke of Beaufort at Bremhill on that day will not readily forget 

 the hail-stones, which descended with such force as to cut their 

 hands till their knuckles bled, and to make their horses kick and 

 plunge from the pain inflicted by them. Still more will the day 

 long be remembered in England as the disastrous day of storm, 

 which cost her the life of one of her best officers, as deeply lamented 

 as he was highly respected by all, the gallant Captain Harrison of 

 the Great Eastern. While those of the inhabitants of North Wilts 

 who live within its limits, will never forget to the last day of their 

 lives "the great Wiltshire storm of December 30th, 1859." 



Yatesl Mlcift^\m! ne, Alfred Charles Smith. 



miles from Oxford : it was evening but still daylight at the time: consequently 

 but very little was seen of it as it passed, but several reports like the filing of 

 cannon were heard. And again, since writing the above (viz. March 10th,) a 

 similar phenomenon occurred at Drogheda, which is said to have struck with the 

 deepest terror those who witnessed it. The moon shone out clearly, the atmos- 

 phere was calm, and the sky was dotted over with stars, when, about nine o'clock, 

 a rumbling noise was heard above, and suddenly the heavens seemed to cleave 

 asunder, when a ball of fire, the most brilliant that fancy could imagine, rolled 

 along the blue vault, and appeared to descend with the most fearful rapidity. 

 For a few seconds the entire town was lighted up so intensely, that many of the 

 inhabitants were completely overwhelmed with terror, the startling novelty, as 

 well as the brilliancy of tho phenomenon combining to cause a complete panic. 



