XXVII. 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 
Read at Watford, 2ith March, 1885. 
Meteorology. 
Whirlwind at Ivinghoe, 11th September, 1834.—It will be 
remembered by those who attended our meeting held at Watford on 
the 20th November, 1883, that I alluded from memory to a very 
remarkable whirlwind which occurred, many years ago, in the 
neighbourhood of Ivinghoe, a small village situate at the foot of 
the Chiltern Hills, not far from the Bridgewater monument. Mr. 
Symons, who was present on the occasion, thought it desirable that 
some particulars of the event should be recorded in the pages of 
our Transactions, and at the request of our Secretary I agreed to 
furnish my boyish recollections of what I saw. Fortunately I have 
succeeded in obtaining a very interesting narrative of the storm and 
its effects, written by my uncle, the late Mr. Thomas Squire, of 
Berkhamsted, in whose company I visited the spot, and who wrote 
the account from notes taken at the time. It is far more circum¬ 
stantial and accurate than anything that I could have supplied from 
memory, and I have much pleasure in reading it. 
“ On the 11th of September, 1834,- a violent storm of wind 
accompanied by hail passed over the village of Ivinghoe, and did 
much damage. It appears to have resembled a West-Indian tornado, 
except that it was confined to a comparatively small space, its 
utmost fury not extending beyond a circle somewhat exceeding 
half a mile in diameter. It is almost beyond the power of the 
writer to present the account in a sufficiently characteristic form, 
but as such phenomena are of rare occurrence in this country, the 
following particulars may not be uninteresting. It was about six 
o’clock in the evening when, to use the expression of a credible 
eye-witness, ‘ a dense smoke, comparable to that issuing from a 
large furnace, advanced so rapidly up the valley that it gave the 
idea of rising out of the ground.’ The air became suddenly 
darkened, and almost as suddenly the darkness cleared away, 
leaving the sky remarkably bright. It only lasted about three 
minutes, but during this short period its devastating effects, as 
visible four days afterwards, when visited by the writer of this 
account, maybe summarised as follows. A barn, the floor of which 
had been newly laid, was completely rolled over, the new floor 
being thrown to a distance of about 40 feet beyond the rest of the 
building. In the same farmyard, a shed, 60 feet long, under which 
a man was milking a cow, was completely lifted over his head and 
dropped at some little distance, without hurting either man or cow. 
The milkman informed us that he was stunned, and he appears 
unable to give a very clear account of his feelings. Another shed 
was partly unroofed and shifted its foundation a few inches without 
falling. Not far from these premises was a cottage where some 
children were at school; the door was suddenly burst open, and a 
