108 
Proceedings of the Eoyal Society 
electrical manifestations in the shape of thunder-storms. This point, 
not yet generally acknowledged, is indicated pretty certainly hy the 
following numbers, extracted from the Eegistrar-G-eneral’s printed 
Eeports for Scotland ; they are, in fact, the deductions prepared 
for that officer at the Eoyal Observatory, Edinburgh, from the 
schedules of fifty-five observers of the Meteorological Society of 
Scotland, and give, for the means of three years, as follows ; — 
Number of Stations 
Mean Number of 
at which Lightning 
Times at each 
was seen. 
Station. 
January, . . . 
34 
4 1 
February, . . . 
11 
2 
March, .... 
42 
3 
April, .... 
May, .... 
24 
4 
86 
5 
June, .... 
85 
7 
July, .... 
August, . . . 
91 
7 ' 
54 
3 
September, . . 
31 
3 
October, . . . 
50 
8 
November, . . 
30 
4 
December, . . 
37 
4 
The storm, then, was anomalous in its season of occurrence, and 
in its violence ; also, as it would appear from the newspaper accounts, 
by the regularity and broad spread of its passage over the country 
from west to east, occurring nearly an hour earlier at Grreenock than 
at Aberdeen or Edinburgh. In Grlasgow and its neighbourhood 
several buildings were struck, a tall chimney and a church entirely 
ruined ; a lodging-house of operatives injured in every floor ; and 
a large number of the telegraph instruments of the Private Tele- 
graph Company thrown out of order, and one clerk rendered 
senseless. 
This storm began in Edinburgh about 7^ p.m., and lasted nearly an 
hour ; it came with very strong west wind, and accompaniments of 
rain and hail ; and it was described to me hy Mr Wallace, who was 
on the Calton Hill at the time, as being most remarkable for the 
slanting, almost horizontal, direction of the lightning, as well as 
