116 THE GREAT STORM OF MIDSUMMER DAY, 1897.
hail the impetus and penetrative energy which its mere fall by
gravity would not have done, and the evidence seems conclusively
to show that the unusual ruin was the result of this joint action.
He repudiates the title of "whirlwind" which has been applied
by some to the storm, because he is unable to trace in the Essex
phenomena the characteristics of a whirlwind—an approxim-
ately circular movement of wind rotating (vortex motion) and
progressing, the motion being horizontal and the axis vertical—
nor any signs of the expansion of confined air. The facts, Mr.
Symons thinks, would probably fit in with the theory of a
revolving storm of which the axis was horizontal. He has
tracked hail-storms which seemed to support such an idea—say
that of a monster steam roller passing along, but sometimes
resting on the surface, and at intervals lifted above it, so that
little injury would be there done. Observations in Essex seem
to bear this theory out—we are told of adjacent fields, one
wrecked and the other but little damaged. The short duration
of the period of actual wrecking is also a fact of interest in
connection with the theory.
GENERAL ASPECTS OF THE STORM.
The newspapers have given many narratives of the general
effects of the storm, some of considerable graphic power—we
select one from the Essex County Chronicle, entitled a "Tale of
the Storm, by one who experienced it." This, we are told by
the Editor, was taken down by Mr. Grant Conybeare, of Ingate-
stone, from the lips of a small local farmer :—
" I was standing here near the fireplace, when all at once my wife said,
'What a curious noise.' It was like a loud moaning, a long way off. As it
gradually increased I knew it was a storm coming. All at once the fine gravel
and dust in the yard seemed to be picked up and to fly up into the air in a
cloud. Then it began to rain, big drops, and the noise and wind increased ;
the air was darkened by a cloud of leaves and twigs blown off the trees ;
then whole branches were blown past the windows. The noise gradually
increased as the rain turned to hail ; the hail becoming larger and larger ;
everything was hidden from view as if by a great white sheet, broken now
and again by the flashes of lightning, and the awful noise was increased by
the rattle of thunder. Only by shouting could we hear each other speak.
The great lumps of ice and glass seemed to fly all over the house. Every
moment we feared the house would come down on top of us. As it gradually
abated the hail again changed to rain. When I opened the door for a few
moments I was sort of dazed. The garden, which a few minutes before had
been beautiful, was a sheet of ice lumps, and everything seemed to have dis-
appeared. The lumps of ice were all shapes and sizes. Many of them were