the bottom.* The surface of the flow was, at different places, between 50 and 80 feet higher than the fine fertile plain, between it and the river Esk. About the middle of the flow were the deepest quags, and there the moss was elevated higher above the plain, than in any part of the neighbourhood. From this, to the farm called the Gap, upon the plain there was a broad gully, though not very deep, through which a brook used to run. The moss, being quite overcharged with the flood, burst at these quags, about 11 o'clock at night, and finding a descent at hand, poured its contents through the gully into the plain. It surprized the inhabitants of 12 towns in their beds.

Nobody was lost, but many

Next morning, 35 families

of the people saved their lives with great difficulty. were found dispossessed, with the loss of most of their corn and some cattle.‡ Some of the houses were near totally covered, and others of them he saw standing in the moss, up to the thatch, the side walls being about 8 feet high.

In the morning, above 200 acres were entirely overwhelmed; and this body. of moss and water, which was of such a consistency, as to move freely, continued to spread itself on all hands for several days. It was come to a stop, when Mr. W. saw it, and had covered 303 acres, as he was informed by a gentleman, who had looked over the plans of the grounds, with Mr. Graham the proprietor: but every fall of rain sets it again in motion, and it has now overspread above 400 acres. At the farthest part it had run within a musket shot of the post road leading from Moffat to Carlisle, when he saw it, but it is since flowed over the road, and reached the Esk. This river, which was one of the clearest in the world, is now rendered black as ink, by the mixture of the moss, and no salmon has since entered into it. A farmer also told him, that on removing the moss, to get at a well which it had covered, they found all the earth-worms lying dead on the surface of the ground. The land that is covered was all inclosed with hedges, bore excellent crops of wheat and turnips, and rented from 11 to 14 shillings, besides the taxes and tythes, which amounted to 4 shillings per acre.

* The surface was always so much of a quagmire, that in most places it was hardly safe for any thing heavier than a sportsman to venture on it, even in the driest summers. A great number of Scotchmen, in the army commanded by Oliver Sinclair, in the time of Henry 8th, lost their lives in it; and it is said that some people digging peats on it, met with the skeleton of a trooper and his horse in complete armour, not many years ago.—Orig.

+ Those who were nearest the place of bursting were alarmed with the unusual noise it made; others not till it had entered their houses, or even, as was the case with some, not till they found it in their beds. Orig.

The case of a cow seems singular enough to deserve a particular mention. She was the only one of 8 in the same cow-house, that was saved, after having stood 60 hours up to the neck in mud and water. When she was got out, she did not refuse to eat, but water she would not taste, nor could even look at, without showing manifest signs of horror. She is now reconciled to it, and likely to recover.-Orig.

Mr. Wendeavoured to guess at the depth of the moss on the plain, by a large thorn, which stands in the middle of it, and which is buried to above the division of the branches. The farmers told him, that it stood upon a rising, more than 6 feet above the general level of the plain: and that it was upwards. of 9 feet high, of clear stem. By this account, great part of the plain must be covered 15 feet deep with the moss: and near the farm called Gap, there were some considerable hollows, where they think the moss, at present, lies full 30 feet deep. The tallest hedges on the land are all covered over the top. The houses are not so much buried, because they stood mostly on the higher parts of the fields; and towards the extremities of the moss, he observed it, in many places, not above 3 or 4 feet deep, owing likewise to the rising of the ground.

The gut through which the whole of the moss flowed that covered the plain, is only about 50 yards wide, and the gully near a quarter of a measured mile long. The brook being stopped up by the moss, has now formed a lake.

About 400 acres of the flow, next the place of its evacuation, appear to have sunk from 5 to 25 feet: and this subsidence has occasioned great fissures on those parts of the moss which refused to sink. These fissures are from 4 to 8 feet wide, and as much in depth. The surface of the flow, consisting of heath and coarse grass, was torn away in large pieces, which still lie on the surface of the new moss, some of them from 20 to 50 feet long. But the greater part of the surface of the flow remained, and only subsided; the moss,' rendered thin by the flood, running away from under it.

Looking over the Solway moss, at the village of Longtown, where there is a bridge on the Esk, they formerly saw only the tops of the trees at Gratney, a house of the Marquis of Annandale's, 4 miles distant; but now they see them almost to the ground. And looking over it, in another direction, they now see two farm-towns of Sir Wm. Maxwel's, which were not before visible. So that the ridge of the flow or moss seems to have subsided about 25 feet.

XVI. On a New Species of Oak. By John Zephaniah Holwel, Esq., F.R.S. Dated Exeter, Feb. 24, 1772. p. 128.

About 7 years back, Mr. Lucombe, of St. Thomas, sowed a parcel of acorns, saved from a tree of his own growth, of the iron or wainscot species: when they came up, he observed one among them that kept its leaves throughout the winter: struck with the phenomenon, he cherished, and paid particular attention to it, and propagated, by grafting, some thousands from it, which Mr. H. had the pleasure of seeing, 8 days ago, in high flourishing beauty and verdure, notwithstanding the severity of the winter. Its growth is straight, and handsome as a fir, its leaves evergreen, and the wood is thought, by the best judges, in hardness and strength to exceed all other oak. It makes but one shoot in the

year, viz. in May, and continues growing without interruption; whereas other oaks shoot twice, namely, in May and August; but the peculiar and estimable part of its character is, the amazing quickness of its growth, which Mr. H. imagines may be attributed, in some degree at least, to its making but one shoot in the year; for he believes all trees that shoot twice, are for some time at a stand, before they make the second. Mr. H. took the dimensions of the parent tree, 7 years old, and some of the grafts; the first measured 21 feet high, and full 20 inches in the girt; a graft of 4 years old, 16 feet high, and full 14 inches in the girt; the first he grafted is 6 years old, and has outshot its parent 2 feet in height. The parent tree seems to promise its acorns soon, as it blossoms, and forms its foot-stalk strong, and the cup on the foot-stalk with the appearance of the acorn, which, with a little more age, will swell to perfection. This oak is distinguished, in this country, by the title of the Lucombe oak; its shoots in general are from 4 to 5 feet every year, so that it will, in 30 or 40 years, out grow in altitude and girt the common oak at a hundred. Several gentlemen round this neighbourhood, and in Cornwall and Somersetshire, have planted them, and they are found to flourish in all soils.

XVII. An Account of the Death of a Person, occasioned by Lightning in the Chapel in Tottenham-Court-Road, and its Effects on the Building; as observed by Mr. Wm. Henly, Mr. Edward Nairne, and Mr. Wm. Jones. The Account written by Mr. Henly. Dated March 24, 1772. p. 131.

On Sunday last, exactly at 4 o'clock, P. M. part of a building erected by the late Rev. Mr. Whitfield, in Tottenham-court-road, commonly called the chapel or tabernacle, was struck by a flash of lightning. This part was an addition afterwards made to the original structure, but was greatly inferior to it in height. On its summit stood an ornament representing a pine apple carved in wood, which consisted of two pieces; the uppermost being connected with the lower by means of several iron spikes. It was supported by a strong plinth of wood covered with lead lapped over the edges and corners of its top, and there secured by large iron nails. This lead work was connected with that which covered the hips, and made a regular communication of metal, to the bottom of the slating, where it united with a leaden gutter which extended quite round the building. In this gutter was erected a small lantern, in which hung the bell of the clock. A little pipe of lead was soldered to, and extended perpendicularly a few inches above the surface of the gutter; through this pipe went a small iron wire consisting of many long links, connected with the tail of the hammer; passing thence within a few inches of the striking rod of the clock, to which it was tied by a strong hempen string 6 inches or more in length. The lightning first struck the pine apple, the upper part of which it shivered into very small frag

ments, and threw them in all directions from the place, and melted off the end of one of the spikes. It left a smoky track on the under part of it, and then struck the edge of the lead on the plinth, which it melted in two places, quite through its substance. A little below these was a third spot; this was melted in a very regular and curious concave, about an 8th of an inch diameter, at the surface, with a small perforation at the bottom, through which might have been introduced one of the finest sort of sewing needles. The whole figure somewhat resembled a small funnel.* It passed thence by a regular communication of metal, till it reached the wire of the clock hammer before spoken of, melting it about half through its diameter, which, in this place, was less than the 12th part of an inch. The edge of the lead pipe, from which it leaped to the wire, was also much melted. The wire was melted at every juncture of the links; the packthread at the bottom was but little injured, but the electric matter leaped through a few inches of air to the striking rod of the clock, in which, near the end, it melted a large spot, whence it was conducted by the work of the clock to the upper part of the pendulum, in the axis of which it melted another large spot, and descended by the rod passing over the ball, which it melted in a most remarkable manner in 6 or 7 places (perhaps on the ball it might accumulate, and for want of a proper conveyance break out in different parts of it) and quitted it at the bottom of the nut, which it melted in 3 places. Here the electricity leaped through 8 inches of air, or passed in conductors of the worst kind, dry brick and wood, with a considerable cavity between them, till it reached the frame of a window, over the doors, where it broke the ceiling, and burnt the wood to a coal. Here it met with the point of a nail, driven upward into the window frame as a security to the centre bar. The point of this nail is melted off full half an inch; it was also melted in two large spots on the opposite sides near the head. Mr. Jones drew it from the bar, &c. This gentleman also took a sketch of the window, and an outline of the parts affected of the building. The lightning passed down the aforementioned bar, and by a bent iron, in contact with both, into another bar, whose point, which was greatly melted, came much nearer the upper bolt of the door. The lead-work, from the point of the bar, was melted, and a board nearly in contact with the staple of the bolt much blacked by the passing of the electricity. Here it struck the upper edge of the staple, which projected a little above the top of the bolt, melted it in a most extraordinary manner; the spot, and indeed several others, having run into a kind of spiral form, which is raised considerably. This effect was first observed by Mr. Nairne. When it quitted this bolt, it struck on a semicircular handle of iron (first tearing out a large piece from the door), the upper part of which has 3

* Quere, is not this a token of the stroke's being from the clouds downwards ?—Orig.

melted spots, besides a single one at the upper edge of it. But, in quitting it, the electricity melted only one spot at the lower edge,* which, as Mr. Bell (a gentleman who was with us) observed, was a criterion by which to judge of the direction of the fluid. To the left of this door, at the distance of 11 feet 4 inches, came down a leaden pipe, which terminated at the ceiling, and there just entered a pitched trunk of fir, which indeed was the case with every leaden pipe about the building. Here the lightning exploded, rending the trunk, and doing other slight damage in and about a window, to which it was attracted by an interrupted and irregular communication of metal. Had this pipe of lead been continued to the bottom of the building, and thence conveyed into the earth, in the manner directed by Dr. Franklin, Mr. H. had no doubt but the whole contents of the explosions would have passed this way, have been conducted with perfect safety to the building, &c. and that no other part of it would have been at all affected. As the effects of this stroke so exactly correspond with those many times before observed by Dr. Franklin, Mr. H. thinks we shall hardly ever meet with a greater proof of the utility of his metallic conductors; and cannot help expressing a sincere wish, that builders, and persons engaged in the erection of public edifices, &c. might be prevailed with to make a regular communication of metal, from the top of such buildings to a considerable depth into the earth, and of such a diameter and kind, as may be sufficient to secure both the buildings, and the lives of those who may happen to be in them. The The poor man destroyed by this accident, was sitting at the time on a short ladder, which lay horizontally on the pavement, with his back against the door. The lightning flew from the middle bolt, and struck him on and under his left ear, entered his neck, making a wound half an inch long, raised in a bur and burnt, passed down his back, which it turned black as ink, down his left arm, melting the stud in his shirt sleeve; the stone in which, as well as the silver, seems to be a little affected. Hence it flew into his body, which it burnt in a hard spot, resembling scorched leather, passing through it into his right leg, and breaking out a little above the ancle; making a large wound, and another bur, burnt as before, with two others smaller a little below it, and some still smaller in his feet. His clothes and hair were much burnt, but his stock, shoe, and knee-buckles, the metal buttons on his coat and waistcoat, a shilling, which he had in the left pocket of his breeches, and the metal clasps of a Common Prayer-Book, in his coat pocket, were all uninjured. His death was truly instantaneous.

* Quere, is not this effect somewhat analogous to Mr. Lullin's electrical experiment with a card è -Orig.

+ The corpse, after lying 2 or 3 days on a table, seemed not more disposed to putrefaction, than bodies at that time generally are, which die a natural death.—Orig.