The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-08-09 00:00:00

THE THUNDERSTORM OF SUNDAY
MORNING.

The effects of the thunderstorm which occurred early
on Sunday morning were very severe in the metropolis
and its vicinity. The lightning was most vivid, and
the rain was very heavy. The storm was generally
felt, and in many instances was attended with serious
consequences. In the south and south-west suburbs of
the metropolis the hailstones destroyed much property.
In the locality of S 5 denham the lightning was vivid and
forked, but there was little hail, and the damage done
was trifling. For nearly two hours the lightning
flashed on an average of over a dozen times a minute.
The thunderstorm was accompanied by a high wind
and hail, and the latter caused a deal of damage at
Kew and Richmond. Tne glass houses of the botanical
gardens suffered severely. The market gardeners
round Richmond have had great losses. In one ease
alone the damage was estimated at £5OO.

Mr. G. S. Measno, writing to The Times, thus describes its
effects, from St. Margaret's, Twickenham :

"The storm of this morning, commencing about
1 30 a.m., probably unprecedented in the valley of the
Thames, will live in the memory of the frightened
people north rad south of the river at this spot.
Never, certainly, within the experience of a sexa-
genarian have we had a truer rendering of the fine lines
by Hayley—

" 'From clashing clouds their mingled torrents gush,
And hall and rain with rival fury rush;
Belts of loud thunder, floods of lightning rend
The opening skies, and into earth descend."
The war of elements in my grounds' with its destruc-
tive effects, cannot be adequately described. Trees
were not, it is true, torn up by the roots • but branches
of cedar, ailanthus, and lime were torn off. The most
remarkable feature of the storm was the size of
the hailstones, the circumference of some of them
being over sia. The velocity is indicated by the
fact that the indentations on the lawns were
in many cases 2in. in diameter and 33in. in
depth. In my vineries and flower-houses I have
counted over 900 broken panes of glass, the total num-
ber of panes barely exceeded 1,000. On the balcony
of the house every pane of thick, rough glass in the
roof was destroyed, and a stained-glass staircese window
shared the same fate."

"X." writes to The Times :—" After the storm at
Richmondnn Sunday morning I picked up a handful
of hailitones, the two largest of which together turned
the scale at an ounce and a half. They were taken up
without any attempt at. selection, had probably been
on the ground for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour,
and were in my hand for certainly more than half a
minute while I was getting the scales ready."

In a leader noticing the disastrous effects of the
storm, the Standard remarks:—
. ... We are, indeed, almost justified in assuming, with
some el our correspotn:ents, ttat no more terrible storm
has visiteet Enetane since the memorable tempest of 1703,
In wilier), the Eddystone Lighthouse, built by WinataeleY,
was wrecked. During that Swami hurricsnce thousands of
the inhabitants of London left their beds and to k refuge in '
the cellars. Roofs were torn off, and stacks of. ehimuees
were blown down, and for mouths afterwards the Temple,
Christ's Hospital, and many other of the larger public
buildings had to be thatched with straw and reeds. At
Weils more especially, the Bishop of the diocese and his
wife were killed in their bed. Defoe, who was in -Kent at'
the time, tells us that in that county alone eleven hundred
and seven dwelling houses and barns were demolished.
Orchards and crops were totally . destroyed.. On the
Thames five hundred wherries, three latindred ships'
buats, lied one hundred
wanhidle the
nuntybmarbgeer o
s were
persons
eisuonnks
or otnerwise lost: n
drowned could never he eX•'..ctly ascertained, twenty-
two bodies were recovered. But it was in the
Channel that the tempest 'burst with its greatest fury.
The fleet under Sir Cloudesley Shovel was 131ng in
the Downs, On its return from the Mediterranean, and when
the storm broke no fewer than six men of war foundered in
the same night with all hands, the loss of officers and men •
being estimated at nearly two thousand. Strangely enough,
however, we find no mention of damage dente, as in
the present instance, bY hail; nor does it appear that
the year 1703 was, like the present, exceptionally gloomy
and tempestuous. At present our knowledge of meteor-
oloey is too limited to enable us to determine whether
there is any connection between violent thunder and
lightning, such as that of Sunday last, and continued
bad weather. We have not a sufficient record of observa-
tions to guide us in the investigation. In the tropics,
where thunderstorms are always most violent, they are not,
as a rule, more frequent in the rainy season of the year
than in the fine season. Indeed, it would seem as if they
were the attendants of sunshine and heat rather than of
steady downpour, mist, and damp, such as that through
which we have been passing.
The science of meteorology is still in its infancy,
although year by year it becomes more and more
exact. Hitherto there have been, until within the
last two decades, very few tabulated records of the weather.
We have at last, however, reached a certain degree of ac-
curacy. The test of science is the possibility of prediction,
and our meteorological predictions are now, as a rule, fully
as accurate as those made by experts in medicine, or in
agriculture, or in any other acience where the phenomena
are complex, and consequently less capable of precise esti-
metion. We Can now .104.11 the advent of a storm with
tolerable certainty. Ale enormous step will be gained should
we ever find it in our power to fortell periods of drought
or moisture. Could we have foretold twelve months ago
what the summer of 1879 was to be like, our farmers would
have made their reckoning accordingly, and many thousands ,
of pounds might have been saved us. That the weather is
not as dependent upon fixed and immutable laws, as are the
movements of the planetary bodies themselves, no one any i
longer seriously maintains. The law by which the seasons
follow one another is familiar to as. Every schoolboy knows
that in winter we are at our maximum distance from the
sun, in spring approaching that luminary, in summer
nearest it, In autumn receding from it. But that "rain and
hail, storm and tempest, wind and snow," are as certain '
in their advent and cease as are the seasons themselves is
an idea somewhat harder to realise, although not on
that account the less ebsolueely true. Meteorology, too,
has of late to some exteut beau discredited by certain ef its
own profepors and students, who have rashly leaped at the
highest generalisations es all, ignoring the only safe rule
of science—that which ist teal key-note of the " Novutn
Orgeuoe "—that in the %Ma aziontata the life and per-
fection of knowledge cossaitts. We have hem d much of este
ut spots on the sun seall their connection with penoes
of drouget and Lanes e, and have actually been eesuree
that a keoeledge of their periodic rettern ysould enaMe us
to anticipate, arid to guard egotist, the famines that from
time to time desolate our Indian Bemire. A generalisation
so wide as tele is obviously a mere coejecture, and, strangely
enough, we have lately been asked to believe that the Name
sun spits which produce drought in India are the cause of
rain and fog in our own more temperate zone. Guesses such
as these are wholly alien to the true sierit of sc;ence. For
years to come meteorologiets cannot too c!oee)y record the
tale told them by perimeter and thermometer; anemo-
meter and rain gnage. Deus, ultimately, geueralisetions
will be arrived at capable of bearing practical fruit ;
and it may pozsibly be as easy fur our descendants to predict •
a storm such as that of Sunday as it now is for ourselves to
forecast the transit of Venus. Meant:me, it is this uncer-
tainty, or rather the inaccuracy of our knowledge regarding
them that makes tempests as destructive as they are.
Otherwise, we might in time anticipate their arrival, and
possibly even welcome it, as the inhabitants of the Egyptian
Delta welcome the rising of the Nile.

At 3 meeting of the Executive Committee of the
North Northamptonshire Central Liberal A:eaciation, held
at the Corn Exchange, Welliegborough, the. following,jeso-
',llion *as unanimously passed, "Thlt this meeting of the
Execu-ive Committee of the North Northamptonshire Can-
trsl Liberal Aveciatiort, being the first since the arrival of
Ore intetli4e-ne!e of the melancholy death or the lion
• ie'nt Vestey WyatteßOgeil, &sixes to x.,)ret4 its gle at
pythpatty eon Condolence with the hey. Edged Wyett-
Edgell and the Baroness raye and all the members of their
family at the sad fate wbich has befallen their eldeat be-
loved son, and also to convey the deep personal regret which
each member feels at the loss of one who, only a short time
known to them, had succeeded in implarting in their minds
a deep-seated attachment, arid they fees that the Liberal
party are indebted to the late bon. gentleman for laying the
Inundation of a Liberal success ih the northern division of
NorthamPtonahlre at no distant period."