The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-06 00:00:00

A GREAT THUNDER STORM,

(Front Dickens' s "All the year Round.")
Long will the night between the 24th and 25th of June,
1863, be memorable among the inhabitants of the Downs
of Sussex. oa. that Wednesday night and Thursday morn-
ing, raged a thunder storm of an extraordinary kind, inte-
resting in an unusual degree to science and humanity ;
to science, because the electrical storm presented features
never recorded in England; to humanity, from the the do-
mestic interest of the tragedies it occasioned. On that
night a tropical storm visited England, Men. who have been
all round the world and seen the storms of every clime, say
they saw that night a storm of a hot country on the shore
of a temperate climate. The area of the storm was consi-
derable. I have seen accounts of it from Chichester in
Sussex, and Chesham in Buckinghainshire. On the south
coast of England its principal range was eastward to East-
bourne beyond Beachy Head, and westward to Chichester
and Selsey Bill, and inland northward to Tunbridge Wells

and Maidstone.
My opportunities of observing it were limited to the
Downs and coast of Sussex.
There are vast differences in the storms of different climes.
The extraordinary thing respecting the storm of the 24th
of June last was, that it was a stormin a temperate climate
with many of the features of a tropical storm.
My place of observation was near the Black Windmill
on the west hill of Brighton. About half-past six o'clock
there fell some "heat drops," heralding a shower. As the
sun descended in the heavens dark bluish-gray clouds over-
cast the sky, which, after sundown, were more and more
frequently lighted up by flashes of sheet or summer light-
ning: I went out for a stroll near home, and was soon
joined by two neighbours, one of whom delights in astro-
nomy, and the other in poetry. About ten o'clock heavy
rain-drops came drumming down upon our hats like a
shower of pebbles. Driven in-doors, I set myself to watch
the storm. The evaporation from the sea had sent up,
during many previous days, clouds of a different composi-
tion from those which had been rising from the rivers, and
winds blowing from different quarters had driven them into
collision. And then began the most magnificent battle of
sea clouds with land clouds I ever beheld. The warring
clouds did not appear to be more than a thousand feet up
whilst resting upon the land. A man who could have be-
held the whole area of the storm from a balloon at an ele-
vation of fifteen hundred or two thousand feet, would
have seen as grand a storm as the imagination can con-
ceive. He would have seen, by means of the lightning
flashes, the white-frothed sea dashing against the coast
line from Selsey Bill to Beachy Head; with the rivers run-
ning between the round hills ; with copses, forests, fields,
cottages, mansions, hamlets, villages, towns, church towers,
cathedral spires, and windmills. There was an extraordi-
nary variety in the forms of the lightning. A dash of
chain lightning is said to have been seen; I myself noted
sheets, darts, forks, zig-zags, and fireballs, I have never
seen, heard, or read of, lightning of such various colours ;
there were flashes of red, purple, bluish-grey, grey, pale
green, milk white, and golden yellow. No human eye dare
brave the dazzling brightness of the fireballs. The un-
usually great variety of the colours shows that there was an
unusually great variety in the composition of the warring
globules, or vesicles. And the thunder was, of course, as
various as the lightning. The sheet lightnings, purple,
bluish-grey, or pale green, were followed by rumbling
noises, like the sound made by heavy artillery, when heard
rolling over rough stone-paved streets at night. The darts,
forks, zig-zags, were followed by rattling peals, resembling
the reports of musketry when heard near enough for the
hissing of the bullets to be discerned in the noise. The
fireball explosions, by their thunder, recalled to mind the
simultaneous discharge of many guns of the highest calibre.
This great variety in the colours and sounds was accom-
panied by another remarkable feature—continuousness.
From half-past nine until a quarter-past one o'clock, the
lightning and thunder were without intermission. The
storm recommenced again at about half-past two, and con-
tinued until after four o'clock in the morning.
For hours the four victims of this thunder storm lay
dead or dying during that fearful night—John Dancer on
the beach under Seaford Cliff, and the spellers and Eliza-
beth Bingham on the road, under Ranscombe Brow. What
a touch of pathos is added to the terror of these storms,
when we remember their wrecked victims, the hopes they
destroyed, and the homes they desolated I How are we to
characterise the foolhardiness which neglects all the known
precautions against their dangers ?
More than three hours after the catastrophe at Rans-
combe, a Lewes tradesman was driving home in a four-
wheeled chaise. It was the darkest, coldest, most eerie
hour in the morning, about half •past 2 o'clock. On the road
at Ranscombe Brow, his horse shied. He applied the whip
gently, but the horse would not advance. His son jumped
down and tried to lead the horse, and then both father and
son tried to lead the horse ; but he would not pass some-
thing on the road. It was very dark. They could see
nothing. At last a flash of lightning showed a cart turned
on the axle, and they discerned a woman lying close under
it. The woman did not answer when spoken to, and they
discovered she was dead. Another flash of lightning re-
vealed another woman rather more under the cart. After
procuring a lantern and assistance, and while drawing the
cart away from the horse, a man was seen under the wheel.
The forepart of the cart was kicked in.
These three victims of this storm were buried in the
churchyard of Glynde on the following Sunday. A long
funeral procession, with about 30 couples of mourners,
followed them from the village to the churchyard. The
coffins, according to ancient Sussex custom, were carried on
the shoulders of 16 men, attired in long white smock-frocks,
with black neckties. One large grave received all three,
and they wera laid down in the order in which they tra-
velled. From 1,000 to 1,500 persons were in the church-
yard ; and a crowded congregation listened in the church,
in tears, to a discourse reminding us that in the midst of
life we are in death.
This great storm left its mark at other places. At
Maidstone and Herstmonceau, hailstones, or rather bits of
ice, of oblong shape and broad as pennypieces, fell, break-
ing skylights. A policeman on duty at East Peckham was
struck by lightning and seriously injured on the left side.
A retriever dog was killed by his master's side at Hurst •
pierpoint. A poplar was shattered into splinters in the vil-
lage of liernsing. At Cuckfield, the lightning entered a
cottage by the chimney, burned a small hole through
the bedroom floor, passed through the sitting-room
below, and left by the door, which happened to be
open. At sea, four sailors were knocked down on
board the Britannia collier, lying off Brighton. At Wil-
mington, the Eagle beerhouse was set on fire and gutted,
the inmates escaping for their lives. At Spring Cottage,
Fount Road, Tunbridge Wells, a man and his wife were
struck in bed, the latter lying for some time insensible.
None of the furniture in the room in which they were sleep-
ing was injured, but the stone sink in the kitchen was shat-
tered to pieces. In Ely Lane, Tunbridge Wells, the light-
ning struck a cottage, breaking pictures, damaging ceiling,
and smashing panes of glass and a chimney mirror. A
horse grazing upon the rocks at Denny Bottom either fell,
being frightened, or was knocked or swept down from the
rocks, and was fatally hurt. The lightning over the whole
range of the storm scorched flowers, corn, especially oats
and barley, although the damage was not considerable ; and
it positively benefited the hop Nines, by debarrassing them
of noxious insects."

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Ja'att