i88 3 J 
in the Year 1883. 
59i 
in the wind’s eye, and played freely along a line drawn 
across England from the Thames to the Dee. The next 
day Cambridgeshire was still the centre of electrical dis- 
turbance, which moved southwards, the wind being west. 
From June 28th until July 4th the thermometer rose high 
in London, reaching as much as 84 degrees in the shade, 
and on‘Friday, June 29th, the heat at Aldershot was so ex- 
cessive that the manoeuvres had to be postponed. About 
midnight there were thunderstorms in the south-eastern 
counties. On Saturday evening the eledlrical disturbance 
was pavilioned near the Wash in Lincolnshire and Norfolk, 
while the south-east was bathed in a prolonged and peaceful 
twilight. On Sunday, July 1st, the thunderstorms danced 
away to the east of Scotland and the vicinity of the Forth. 
On Monday evening the eledtrical disturbance had shifted 
to Jersey, and some wished it fairly on the road to Spain. 
But as I looked from my window, towards midnight, there 
it was back like a Will-o’-the-wisp, bilious, growling, and 
flashing. The wind was reported to have been from the 
south-west at the time, but the eledfrical discharge ran right 
up the centre of England from Hampshire to Yorkshire. 
The next day the disturbance centred in Yorkshire and 
spread to France, and about this time to Switzerland, 
destroying man and cattle in the pastures. Then the tem- 
perature at York reached 70 degrees. About midnight it is 
related that there was a thunderstorm at Chatham, where a 
policeman was killed ; but on Wednesday afternoon the 
chief disturbance was on the north-west coast at Ardrossan, 
whence it ran south to Chester. 
In a late communication I drew attention to the waves of 
heat and cold that make up what is termed climate, and I 
believe it may be shown by statistics that a great heat-wave 
has just passed over our heads, travelling from west to east, 
of which heat-wave the earthquake was the herald. The 
lightnings and thunders in this sense might be compared to 
the discharge of a thermo-eledtric machine, the flashes 
moving to the point where the air temperature stood highest, 
as appears in many cases. The path of the discharges that 
branded our island with the sign of the cross, from east to 
west and south to north, further substantiates this view; 
and it may be observed that the whole disturbed area is 
pretty well included by the July isotherm of 59 degrees, in 
which we may consider London, Cambridge, York, &c., as 
so many warm centres, the carbons of the recent discharges. 
It appears to be pretty generally admitted that Aurorae 
Boreales and magnetic storms arise from the sun-spots when 
