68 Mr. Brydone’s Account of 
them from breathing. It was not without much difficulty they 
could reach the bank, where they fat down, exhaufted with 
fatigue, and greatly alarmed : however it lafted but a very 
fhort time, and was fucceeded by a perfect calm. This hap- 
pened about an hour before the explofion. 
A woman, making hay near the banks of the river, fell 
fuddenly to the ground, and called out to her companions, that 
fhe had received a violent blow on the foot, and could not ima- 
gine from whence it came. This I had not from the woman her- 
felf, but from Mr. Turnbull, a very refpedlable farmer. Mr. 
Bell, our minifter, nephew of Thomson the Poet, andpofleffed 
of all the candout and ingenuity of his uncle, told me, that, 
walking in his garden, a little before Lauder’s accident, he 
feveral times felt a fenfible tremor in the ground. Pie likewife 
told me (what I find I had forgot to mention in the proper 
place), that he had obferved on Lauder’s body a zig-zag line^ 
of about an inch and a quarter broad, which extended from 
his chin down to his right thigh, and had followed nearly the 
line of the buttons of his waiflcoat. The fkin was burnt 
white and hard. 
Thefe, fir, are all the circumftances I have been able to 
collect that are well authenticated ; and I fhall not trouble you 
with reports that are not. From the whole it would appear, 
that the earth had acquired a great fuper-abundance of ele&ri- 
cal matter, which was every where endeavouring to fly off 
into the atmofphere. Perhaps it might be accounted for from 
the exceffive drynefs of the ground; and, for many months, 
the almofl: total want of rain, which is probably the agent that 
Nature employs in preferving, or in refloring, the equilibrium 
between the other two elements. But I fhall not pretend to 
invefligate the caufes : all I wanted, was to give you fome 
account 
