I Received the inclosed letter by the post, giving an account of the
storm, which happened lately in the north. If the Royal Society have
not already been informed of the effects of it, and you think the
contents of it worthy their notice; I beg you will be so good as to
communicate it to them. The facts therein mentioned have been confirmed
to me by a person of skill and integrity. Mr. Thomlinson’s conjecture
of the cause of the leaves of trees appearing scorched after the storm,
I believe to be true; having two or three times myself observed the
same in Sussex, at a considerable distance from the sea; when all the
hedges, trees, and woods, on the side toward the sea, have had their
leaves scorched, as if fire had passed over them; and their opposite
sides from the sea have continued in full verdure; which frequently
happens in storms from the south-west: and, upon tasting their leaves,
I have found them as salt, as if they had been steeped in brine. I am,
SIR,
Your most obedient humble Servant,
Philip Miller.
Chelsea, Nov. 23. 1756.
_To Mr._ Philip Miller.
Wigton, Nov. 15. 1756.
+SIR,+
ON the 6th of last month, at night, happened a most violent hurricane,
such an one, perhaps, as has not been known in these parts in any
one’s memory. It lasted four hours at least, from about eleven till
three. The damage it has done is very deplorable. The corn has sufferd
prodigiously. Stacks of hay and corn have been intirely swept away:
houses unroofed, and in several places driven down by its fury: trees
without number torn up by the roots; others snapt off by the middles,
and their fragments scattered over the adjoining fields. Some were
twisted almost round, or split down to the very ground; and, in short,
left in such a shattered, mangled condition, as scarce any description
can give you an adequate idea of.
The change in the face of the country was very surprising in one single
night: for, to complete the dismally-desolate scene, the several tribes
of vegetables (in all their verdure the day before), as if blasted with
æthereal fire, hung down their drooping heads. Every herb, every plant,
every flower, had its leaves withered, shrivelled up, and turned black.
The leaves upon the trees, especially on the weather side, fared in the
same manner. The evergreens alone seem to have escaped. The grass also,
in a few days time, recovered itself in a great measure.
I agreed at first with the generality of people in their opinion, that
lightning had done all this mischief: but upon recollecting, that
there had not been much seen any where, in many places none at all,
but that the effect was general[118], as far as ever the wind had
reached; I began to think, that some other cause might probably be
assigned. Accordingly, I set myself immediately to examining the dew or
rain, which had fallen on the grass, windows, _&c._ in hopes of being
enabled, by its taste, to form some better judgment of the sulphureous
or nitrous particles (or of whatever other quality they were), with
which the air was so strongly impregnated that night, as to produce
such strange effects. Nor was I deceived in my expectations: for, upon
tasting it, I found it as brackish as any sea-water. The several
vegetables also, which I tasted, were all salt, more or less, and
continued so for five or six days after; the saline particles not being
then washed off; from the corn and windows in particular; the latter of
which, when the moisture on the outside was exhaled next day, sparkled
and appeared exceeding brilliant in the sunshine. This saltness, I
conceive, has done the principal damage: for common salt dissolved in
water, I find, upon experiment on some fresh vegetables (when sprinkled
two or three times upon them) has the very same effect, except that it
does not turn them quite so black: but particles of a sulphureous, or
[119]other quality, may have been mixed with it. That this salt water
had been brought from the sea[120], every body, I think, will allow;
but the manner how[121], is not so easy to conceive.
This freedom, Sir, perhaps may want an apology: but, as a
gentleman[122] of the Society you have the honour to be a member of,
did not think something of the like nature either unworthy of his
own notice, or that of the world; and as the hurricane principally
affected these parts of nature, in the knowledge of which you have so
eminently distinguished yourself; I flattered myself you would excuse
the trouble I should give you in a perusal of an account of this very
strange, tho’ hitherto unnoticed, phenomenon.