length; the breadth being from east to west, and the length from north to south. Soon after the complete formation of the Helm-bar, a violent wind issues from the space between the clouds, generally blowing directly from the east, and with such power that trees have been dismantled of their foliage, stacks of grain dispersed, and heavy vehicles overturned. The Helm-wind has continued for as much as nine days together, with a noise resembling that of a violent sea-storm, but it is seldom accompanied with any rain. It has been suggested, that the air from the coast of Northumberland, being cooled as it rises to the summit of the mountains, and there condensed, descends from thence with great force, by its gravity, into the district, to the west of Hartside, the scene of the phenomenon: but obviously a variety of other causes must enter into its production. In several parts of the globe, an extensive vacuum being suddenly created in the atmosphere by the agency of electricity, the surrounding air rushes in with immense impetuosity from all points of the compass, blowing in gusts of resistless power, destroying all the productions of the earth, leveling forests and the finest buildings, and inundating whole tracts of country by the deluge of rain with which they are accompanied. These storms seldom occur far out in the open ocean, or beyond the tropics, or nearer the equator than nine or ten degrees. Their principal localities are the West India Islands, those of Madagascar, Mauritius, and Bourbon, the north-west coast of Africa, the Bay of Bengal, and the Chinese Sea, where they are variously called hurricanes, tornadoes, and typhoons. A heavy swell upon the sea, a dusky redness of the sky, a close oppressive air, and a wild irregularity in the appearance of things, are the usual precursors of a tropical tempest. Though generally confined to the districts mentioned, where they are of frequent occurrence, the extra-tropical latitudes, at more distant intervals, experience the force of the hurricane. When were the winds Let slip with such a warrant to destroy? When did the waves so haughtily o’erleap Their ancient barriers, deluging the dry?” This is the language of Cowper in the Task, respecting the year 1783, when—amid the other events of that portentous season, noticed upon a previous page—a succession of storms, accompanied with violent rains, visited the whole of Great Britain, and caused considerable damage. But what is known in our records as the “Great Storm,” occurred on the night of the 26th and the morning of the 27th of November 1703, and has been referred to by almost all the writers of that period. Derham, in the Philosophical Transactions for the year following, states—