30 Proceedi?igs of the Newport Natural History Society. 
dow-shutters, tin-roofing and shingles. Small branches of 
trees were cut or blown off, and flower and vegetable gar¬ 
dens were crushed to earth beneath the pelting ice balls. 
Numerous horses, terrified by the thunder and lightning 
and smarting under the terrific blows of the hail, broke 
loose and plunged madly through the streets. Many persons, 
too, were injured by the hail and broken glass, which were 
flying everywhere, but fortunately no seribus accidents to 
humanity are recorded. Three horses were killed in the 
storm — one by broken glass, and two by runaway accidents. 
In less than ten minutes the hail was over, and the 
storm receded eastward as rapidly as it had advanced. To 
those who then ventured abroad the city presented a sorry 
sight. The streets were filled with wreckage, the ground 
was white with the fallen hailstones, and the northern and 
western sides of the buildings, which had borne the brunt 
of the tornado, looked as if they had been subject to a 
vigorous discharge from a rapid-fire battery. Windows 
everywhere in the track of the storm were riddled. The 
Perry House — which being exposed to the open square on 
the northwest afforded an excellent target for the hail — 
had scarcely an unbroken window (except the lower plate- 
glass ones) on its front. The same is true of the State 
House, which had only six unbroken lights of glass on its 
north end, while on the west front more than eighty lights 
were broken. It is stated that in the First, Second and 
Third wards not a house or barn escaped without broken 
* > 
windows, and that many had nothing but broken glass on 
their exposed sides. Of course the greenhouses suffered 
particularly, and the losses to their owners were very 
heavy. Mr Hodgson, for instance, had 900 lights of glass 
in his greenhouses broken. 
The storm covered a width of two miles, extending from 
One Mile Corner on the north, to Wellington and Narra- 
gansett avenues on the south. Outside of these limits there 
was but little rain, and very little hail. 
On leaving the island the heaviest part of the storm passed 
