THE GREAT STORM OF MIDSUMMER DAY, 1897.
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there a total loss, it still means 32,000 acres, and putting it
at even £3 per acre, it represents a loss of about £100,000.
We have seen the amount put at more than double that sum."
The number of birds killed was enormous, and in many
districts there will be no shooting. Not only were young
birds drowned, but old ones were struck dead by the hail-
stones. Cases are on record where wood-pigeons, crows, and
other birds fell from trees as if shot by guns, with their heads
split open by the falling ice.
In compiling the following account of the tempest, we have
to acknowledge great indebtedness to our esteemed Hon.
Member, Mr. G. J. Symons, F.R.S., Sec. Roy. Meteor. Soc., who
has in the kindest manner permitted us to use the material
contained in his paper in Symons's Monthly Meteorological
Magazine for July. We have also used freely the many
excellent narratives which have appeared in the local papers.
FIRST APPEARANCE AND PHYSICAL NATURE
OF THE STORM.
The Sketch-Map accompanying this report shows roughly
the course of the storm in Mid-Essex, the scenes of the
greatest damage only being indicated. But at about the same
time (3.30 or 4 o'clock) there was wreckage going on along a
strip of Bedfordshire between Luton and Biggleswade, and
the following account of a storm at Langford, near the latter
place, has been published, and is quoted here as evidence of
the destruction wrought in Bedfordshire :—
" A terrific storm passed over this village on Thursday, June 24th, at
about four o'clock in the afternoon. The lighting and thunder were not
particularly severe, but the wind and hail were most alarming, and have
caused sad havoc and loss. Such a storm has not visited this village since
1843. The crops have suffered terribly, wheat and barley being broken
about half-way down the straw, and have already started to prematurely
ripen. Onions have scarcely a particle of luke left on them, and turnip seed
and beans are ruined. Many gardens are wrecked, the vegetables being
badly cut, and the fruit stripped from the trees or so badly bruised that it
will be of no service. In many cases the bark of the tree is so badly bruised
and cut that in all probability the trees will die. A quantity of glass was
broken, and a number of young fowls and ducks were killed. Numbers of
dead rooks were collected from the fields next day. The hailstones were of
enormous size and very irregular in shape, many resembling rough pieces of
ice with sharp edges."