The wonders of the world

by John Loraine Abbott

Somewhat analogous to these movements of electricity, are those connected with the electric telegraph during the violent thunder-storms that so often take place in the summer season. When such storms are raging, and particularly when the lightning is abundant and near, not only is the operation of the telegraph entirely suspended, but sometimes the lightning itself passes with great violence over the wires, in some cases melting and destroying them, and in others passing by them as it does by the lightning-rod, and manifesting its violence chiefly at the point of their termination. In some instances, the wires have been instantly melted by the electric fluid, and in others the machinery of the offices injured or destroyed, while at other times persons have been struck, or dwellings set on fire by its power.

HAIL-STORMS.

On the seventeenth of July, 1666, a violent storm of hail fell on the English coast, in Norfolk and Suffolk. At North Yarmouth the hailstones were comparatively small; but at Snapebridge, one was taken up which measured a foot in circumference; at Seckford Hall, one which measured nine inches; and at Melton, one measuring eight inches. At Friston Hall, one of these hailstones, being put into a balance, weighed two ounces and a half. At Aldborough, it was affirmed that several of them were as large as turkeys’ eggs. A carter had his head broken by them through a stiff felt hat: in some places it bled, and in others tumors arose: the horses were so pelted that they hurried away his cart beyond all command. The hailstones were white, smooth without, and shining within.

On the twenty-fifth of May, 1686, the city of Lille, in Flanders, was visited by a tremendous hail-storm. The hailstones weighed from a quarter of a pound to a pound in weight, and even more. One was observed to contain in the center a dark brown matter, and being thrown into the fire, gave a very loud report. Others were transparent, and melted instantly before the fire. This storm passed over the city and citadel, leaving not a whole glass in the windows on the windward side. The trees were broken, and some beaten down, and partridges and hares killed in abundance.

In 1697, a horrid black cloud, attended with frequent lightnings and thunder, coming with a south-west wind out of Caernarvonshire, in Wales, and passing near Snowdon, was the precursor of a most tremendous hailstorm. In the part of Denbighshire bordering on the sea, all the windows on the weather side were broken by the hailstones discharged from this cloud, and the poultry and lambs, together with a large mastiff, killed. In the north part of Flintshire, several persons had their heads broken, and were grievously bruised in their limbs. The main body of this hail-storm fell on Lancashire, in a right line from Ormskirk to Blackburn, on the borders of Yorkshire. The breadth of the cloud was about two miles, within which compass it did incredible damage, killing all descriptions of fowl and small creatures, and scarcely leaving a whole pane of glass in any of the windows where it passed. What was still worse, it plowed up the earth, and cut off the blade of the green corn, so as utterly to destroy it, the hailstones burying themselves in the ground. These hailstones, some of which weighed five ounces, were of different forms, some round, others semi-spherical; some smooth, others embossed and crenulated, like the foot of a drinking-glass, the ice being very transparent and hard; but a snowy kernel was in the midst of most of them, if not of all. The force of their fall showed that they descended from a great hight. What was thought to be most extraordinary in this phenomenon was, that the vapor which disposed the aqueous parts thus to congeal, should have continued undispersed for so long a tract as upward of sixty miles, and should, during this extensive passage, have occasioned so extraordinary a coagulation and congelation of the watery clouds, as to increase the hailstones to so vast a bulk in so short a space as that of their fall.

On the fourth of May, 1767, at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, after a violent thunder-storm, a black cloud suddenly arose in the south-west, about two o’clock in the afternoon, the wind then blowing strongly in the east, and was almost instantly followed by a shower of hail, several of the hailstones measuring from seven or eight to thirteen or fourteen inches in diameter. The extremity of the storm fell near Offley, where a young man was killed, and one of his eyes was beaten out of his head, his body being in every part covered with bruises. Another person, nearer to Offley, escaped with his life, but was much bruised. At a nobleman’s seat in the vicinity, seven thousand squares of glass were broken, and great damage was done to all the neighboring houses. The large hailstones fell in such immense quantities, that they tore up the ground, and split many large oaks and other trees, cutting down extensive fields of rye, and destroying several hundred acres of wheat, barley, &c. Their figures were various, some being oval, others round, others pointed, and others again flat.

HURRICANES.

The ruin and desolation accompanying a hurricane can scarcely be described. Like fire, its resistless force rapidly consumes everything in its track. It is generally preceded by an awful stillness of the elements, and a closeness and mistiness in the atmosphere, which make the sun appear red, and the stars of more than an ordinary magnitude. But a dreadful reverse succeeding, the sky is suddenly overcast and wild; the sea rises at once from a profound calm into mountains; the wind rages and roars like the noise of cannon; the rain descends in a deluge; a dismal obscurity envelops the earth with darkness; and the superior regions appear rent with lightning and thunder. The earth, on these occasions, often does, and always seems to tremble, while terror and consternation distract all nature: birds are carried from the woods into the ocean; and those whose element is the sea, fly for refuge to the land. The affrighted animals in the fields assemble together, and are almost suffocated by the impetuosity of the wind, in searching for shelter, which, when found, serves them only for destruction. The roofs of houses are carried to vast distances from their walls, which are beaten to the ground, burying their inmates beneath them. Large trees are torn up by the roots, and huge branches shivered off, and driven through the air in every direction, with immense velocity. Every tree and shrub that withstands the shock, is stripped of its boughs and foliage. Plants and grass are laid flat to the earth. Luxuriant spring is in a moment changed to dreary winter. This direful tragedy ended, when it happens in a town, the devastation is surveyed with accumulated horror: the harbor is covered with wrecks of boats and vessels; and the shore has not a vestige of its former state remaining. Mounds of rubbish and rafters in one place; heaps of earth and trunks of trees in another; deep gullies from torrents of water; and the dead and dying bodies of men, women and children, half-buried, and scattered about, where streets but a few hours before were, present to the miserable survivors a shocking conclusion of a spectacle, often followed by famine, and, when accompanied by an earthquake, by mortal diseases. Such is the true and terrific picture of a hurricane in the West Indies, as drawn by an actual observer.

On the Indian coast, hurricanes are both frequent and disastrous. On the second of October, 1746, the French squadron, commanded by Le Bourdonnai, being at anchor in Madras roads, a hurricane came on which in a few hours destroyed nearly the whole of the fleet, together with twenty other ships belonging to different nations. One of the French ships foundered in an instant, and only six of the crew were saved. On the thirtieth of December, 1760, during the siege of Pondicherry, a tremendous hurricane drove ashore and wrecked three British ships belonging to the besieging squadron: the crews were saved. On the twentieth of October of the following year, 1761, the British fleet, then lying in Madras roads, had to encounter a violent hurricane. The men-of-war put to sea, and were thus providentially saved; but all the vessels which still lay at anchor were lost, and scarcely a soul on board saved. On the twenty-ninth of October, 1768, another hurricane was, on the coast of Coromandel, fatal to the Chatham Indiaman, which neglected to put to sea.

In the West Indies, a tremendous hurricane on the twenty-first of October, 1817, was particularly severe at the island of St. Lucie. All the vessels in the port were entirely lost. The government-house was blown down, and all within its walls, comprising the governor, his lady and child, his staff, secretaries, servants, &c., amounting to about thirty persons, were buried in its ruins: not one survived the dreadful accident; and still more horrid to relate, the barracks of the officers and soldiers were demolished, and all within them (about two hundred persons) lost. All the estates on the island were reduced to a heap of ashes. At Dominica, nearly the whole of the town was inundated, with an immense destruction of property.