136 CHRISTY : THE MID-ESSEX WIND-RUSH AND WHIRL-WIND. 
(about 8,600 acres) ; and it is, in general, quite straight, though 
slightly wavy in parts. Its direction, from beginning to end, 
was N.E. by N., as is shown upon the map on page 137. 
A striking feature of the storm was its extreme narrowness. 
I could see no sign of its having been more than about one 
hundred yards wide, and its average width seems to have been 
less. Another feature was its very sharply-defined edges. 
In not a few places, I saw trees, standing just on its edge, which 
had lost most of their branches on the side next the storm,but 
were practically uninjured on the other side. Nearly every 
where, too, one saw evidence of what one may call partiality on 
the part of the storm—a tree standing right in its track and close 
to other trees which had been largely destroyed, but itself almost 
untouched. Yet another feature which seemed obvious was 
the ease with which the storm accommodated itself to the 
varying levels of the ground. At one or two low points (men¬ 
tioned hereafter), as much damage seemed to have been done 
as on higher ground. 
The number of trees, chiefly oaks and elms, blown down or 
smashed certainly runs into thousands. The elm (a very shallow 
rooted tree) suffered most, and great numbers were either 
decapitated, broken off short, or blown up by the roots. In 
the case of the oak (a much more robust tree), I saw none blown 
up by the roots, very few broken off short, and few which had 
lost their larger branches, but many which had had their upper 
and outer branches twisted off, apparently by the rotary motion 
of the storm. In many cases, these were not actually removed 
from the trees, but were half broken off and left hanging, giving 
a very curious appearance. 
The storm, owing to its extreme narrowness, struck buildings 
at five points only—Bumpstead’s Farm, Montpelier’s Farm, 
the village of Writtle, some cottages by “ No. 1 Bridge/’ and 
some cottages by the Clavpits at Broomfield, all mentioned 
hereafter. At the first named, no damage was done ; and, at 
the others, the damage was small, except in the village of Writtle 
In general, the effect of the storm was much as though a 
gigantic whip-lash, one-hundred yards wide, had been slashed 
across the face of the country for five miles. 
The whirl-wind started (as far as I have been able to ascer¬ 
tain) on the high ground (over 300 ft.) in the Writtle and Mar- 
