Thursday, March 12th, was a day of very severe weather, and the efforts of the hundreds of men working on the various lines to clear the snow and also to release some of the buried trains were seriously retarded. By the end of the week, however, things were beginning to assume their normal aspect, and the trains were running with tolerable punctuality. The telegraph service, in a deplorable condition of collapse throughout the week, was restored, and the masses of accumulated correspondence in the post offices were sent on to their destinations. The labour of clearing the lines was as dangerous as it was arduous, and unhappily an accident, proving fatal to one man, occurred during the operations on the Great Western Railway at Ivybridge. Work was being carried on at this spot under the superintendence of Mr. C. E. Compton, and a number of men were engaged in getting an engine on to the line, when a train dashed round a curve among the workmen killing one, named William Stentiford, of Plymouth, and seriously injuring two others. The lamentable occurrence was purely accidental, and that this was the only fatal occurrence during the whole of the operations of this most trying week indicates the care that was taken by all those engaged on the railways from the highest officials downwards. Such an experience was never before met with, and it was a matter of congratulation that those in power were able to cope with the difficulties as well as they did. No doubt some practical lessons were learnt during the operations, and should such a visitation unhappily occur in the West of England on any future occasion, the experience gained during this terrible week will not be without value. CHAPTER IV. AT SEA. Sad and disastrous as were the effects of the blizzard on land on the night of Monday, March 9th, they were in most cases of a nature more or less reparable. At sea, however, the case was different, and from the afternoon of the day on which the storm commenced to the end of the week wrecks, resulting in the loss of over fifty lives, were strewn along the coast from Start Point to Falmouth. In most cases, such was the fury of the gale, but little help could be afforded from the shore. Generally, to launch a boat or to use a rocket apparatus was out of the question, and those on the shore, anxious to send help to the doomed vessels, had great difficulty in escaping from being blown into the sea. In many instances gallant services were rendered, and all that courage and self-sacrifice could do with the hope of saving life was accomplished; but the time was one of no common peril, and on the Tuesday lives were lost in full view of the cliffs upon the rocky fringes of which the vessels had been driven.