7 
A WHIRLWIND AND WIND-RUSH AT GOSFIELD. 
mated at half-a-ton) of a newly-made haystack, leaving it at 
a right-angle with its former position ; swept a number of 
tiles off a shed ; and blew (or, perhaps, sucked) the barn doors 
(which open outwards) inside the barn till they jammed on the 
floor inwards. It just missed the dwelling-house, but smashed 
a damson tree growing beside the road, which it here crossed 
into a field of beans, where a good deal of damage was done 
to the crop. 
Here, apparently, the wind-rush stopped. The Messrs. 
Fenner consider that it did so, and I have been quite unable 
to trace further on any damage which can be attributed to 
it with any certainty. Assuming this to be the case, it will be 
found that the storm traversed a course slightly less than one 
mile and a half long—little more than one-quarter (that is) 
of the traverse of the Writtle storm. In general, its course 
was (like that of the Writtle storm) from south-west to north¬ 
east. 
The storm was (as is usual with such storms) exceedingly 
narrow. Nowhere could I see any evidence that it was as 
much as iooft. wide, and I believe it was even narrower in 
places, though it is impossible, of course, to judge its width 
with accuracy. There is clear evidence, however, that its 
edges were very sharply defined, as in the case of the Writtle 
storm. 
At the time of the occurrence of the storm, I made no precise 
observations to determine its duration. I noted, however, 
that it was certainly very brief, and that it appeared to travel 
at a fairly-uniform rate. Further, I gathered from observers 
at the beginning and end of the course that its total time of 
traverse could not have exceeded ten minutes. Since then, 
however, I have endeavoured to estimate the duration of the 
storm more accurately—a very difficult thing to do, in view 
of the amazing rapidity with which its different phases followed 
one another. I took a position as near as possible to that from 
which I had actually viewed the storm. After noting the exact 
time, I imagined that I was again witnessing the successive 
phases of the storm, with my eyes fixed on the actual points 
at which I had seen them take place ; and I noted the time 
again at the conclusion of my “ reconstruction ” of the storm 
(as the French would say). I repeated the experiment several 
