A Letter from the Rev. Mr. Milles on the same Subject.
ABOUT four of the clock on Sunday afternoon, the same day that the lightning struck the farm-house at Bucklawren, it fell upon another house called Pelyne, in the parish of Lanreath, about six miles distant. The house fronts the east. The chimney, which is at the north end, is cracked, and opened about two or three inches wide, from the top to the roof, where it entered the slating thro' a small hole on the eastern side; forced its way thro' the upper chamber, where it melted an old copper skillet, a pair of sheepshears, and some odd brass buckles and candlesticks that lay on the wall; consumed the laths adjoining, and then made its way thro' a small crevice in the upper part of the window. Another and more severe part of the same lightning descended the chimney; struck two women down who were sitting on each side of it, without any further hurt; overturned a long table, that was placed before the window in the ground room, upon two men, who were sitting on the inside, with their backs towards the window. One of these men was miserably burnt in his right arm. The lightning seems to have struck him a little above the elbow, making a small orifice about the bigness of a pea; the burn from thence to the shoulder is near an inch deep. His right thigh was likewise burnt on the inside, and the outside of his right leg, from a little below the knee, quite over the ancle to his toes. Both knees were burnt across slightly, and his left thigh. His shirt-sleeve, and the upper part of his waistcoat, were reduced to tinder: the buckles in his shoes were melted in different parts, and in different directions. He has not been able to use his arm since; and is under the care of a surgeon, who has reduced the wound to a hand's breadth, which was in the beginning advancing fast towards a mortification. The other man was but slightly wounded. The lightning afterwards found its way thro' the window in three different places; melted the glass, leaving a smutty tinge, like that of fired gunpowder. A boy, about ten years old, son to the under-tenant, was also struck down, as he was standing at the door, but not hurt. The father and his daughter felt no ill effects; but saw the lightning roll on the floor, and thought the room was on fire.
XV. An Account of the Peat-pit near Newbury in Berkshire; in an Extract of a Letter from John Collet, M.D. to the Right Reverend Richard Lord Bishop of Ossory, F.R.S.
Newbury, Decemb. 2, 1756.
My Lord,
Read Feb. 24, 1757.
NOW I am mentioning the peat, I beg leave to assure your Lordship, that tho' some persons have asserted, that after the peat has been cut out, it grows again after some years; yet this is not true of the peat found here, none of the peat-pits, which were formerly dug out, and have lately been opened again, affording the least reason to justify such an opinion; but, on the contrary, the marks of the long spade (with which they cut out the peat) are still plainly visible all along the sides of the pits, quite down to the bottom; and are now as fresh as if made but yesterday, tho' cut above fifty years ago: which shews also, that our peat is of too firm a texture to be pressed together, and to give way, so as to fill again the empty pits: which perhaps may be the case in some of the mosses, where the pits are found after some years to be filled up again.
The town of Newbury lies north and south, in the shape of a Y, cross a valley; which valley runs east and west, and is here about a mile broad, the river Kennet running along the middle of it. The peat is found in the middle of this valley, on each side of the river, extending in all from between a quarter of a mile to about half a mile in breadth and in length, along the valley, about nine miles westward, and about seven eastward; and I believe much further tho' not yet discovered, and perhaps with some intermissions.
The ground it is found in is meadow land; and consists chiefly of a whitish kind of earth: under this lies what they call clob, being a peat-earth, compounded of clay, of a small quantity of earth, and some true peat: it is from four to eighteen inches thick; and where the earth above it is but thin, it is sometimes full of the roots of plants, that grow on the surface of the ground: and if the meadow also be moorish, the sedge and flags will shoot their roots quite thro' it into the true peat, which lies directly under this clob.