A WHIRLWIND AND WIND-RUSH AT GOSFIELD.
7
mated at half-a-ton) of a newly-made haystack, leaving it at
a right-angle with its former position; swept a number of
tiles off a shed; and blew (or, perhaps, sucked) the barn doors
(which open outwards) inside the barn till they jammed on the
floor inwards. It just missed the dwelling-house, but smashed
a damson tree growing beside the road, which it here crossed
into a field of beans, where a good deal of damage was done
to the crop.
Here, apparently, the wind-rush stopped. The Messrs.
Fenner consider that it did so, and I have been quite unable
to trace further on any damage which can be attributed to
it with any certainty. Assuming this to be the case, it will be
found that the storm traversed a course slightly less than one
mile and a half long—little more than one-quarter (that is)
of the traverse of the Writtle storm. In general, its course
was (like that of the Writtle storm) from south-west to north-
east.
The storm Was (as is usual with such storms) exceedingly
narrow. Nowhere could I see any evidence that it was as
much as 100ft. wide, and I believe it was even narrower in
places, though it is impossible, of course, to judge its width
with accuracy. There is clear evidence, however, that its
edges were very sharply defined, as in the case of the Writtle
storm.
At the time of the occurrence of the storm, I made no precise
observations to determine its duration. I noted, however,
that it was certainly very brief, and that it appeared to travel
at a fairly-uniform rate. Further, I gathered from observers
at the beginning and end of the course that its total time of
traverse could not have exceeded ten minutes. Since then,
however, I have endeavoured to estimate the duration of the
storm more accurately—a very difficult thing to do, in view
of the amazing rapidity with which its different phases followed
one another. I took a position as near as possible to that from
which I had actually viewed the storm. After noting the exact
time, I imagined that I was again witnessing the successive
phases of the storm, with my eyes fixed on the actual points
at which I had seen them take place; and I noted the time
again at the conclusion of my "reconstruction" of the storm
(as the French would say). I repeated the experiment several