he chance. In wind action of this kind the
amount of actual force used is the least part of the business;--it
is the suddenness of its concentration, and the lifting and
twisting strength, as of a wrestler, which make the blast fatal;
none of which elements of storm-power can be recognized by
mechanical tests. In my friend's next letter, however, he gives us
some evidence of the _consistent_ strength of this same gale, and
of the electric conditions which attended it:--the prefatory notice
of his pet bird I had meant for 'Love's Meinie,' but it will help
us through the grimness of our studies here.

"_March 3d, 1884._

My small blackheaded gull Jack is still flourishing, and the time
is coming when I look for that singularly sudden change in the
plumage of his head which took place last March. I have asked all
my ocean-going friends to note whether these little birds are not
the gulls _par excellence_ of the sea; and so far all I have heard
from them confirms this. It seems almost incredible; but my son, a
sailor, who met that hurricane of the 26th of January, writes to me
to say that out in the Bay of Biscay on the morning after the gale,
'though it was blowing like blazes, I observed some little gulls of
Jacky's species, and they followed us half way across the Bay,
seeming to find shelter under the lee of our ship. Some alighted
now and then, and rested upon the water as if tired.' When one
considers that these birds must have been at sea all that night
somewhere, it gives one a great idea of their strength and
endurance. My son's ship, though a powerful ocean steamer, was for
two whole hours battling head to sea off the Eddystone that night,
and for that time the lead gave no increase of soundings, so that
she could have made no headway during those two hours; while all
the time her yards had the St. Elmo's fire at their ends, looking
as though a blue light was burning at each yard-arm, and this was
about all they could see.

Yours sincerely,
ROBT. C. LESLIE."

The next letter, from a correspondent with whom I have the most
complete sympathy in some expressions of his postscript which are
yet, I consider, more for my own private ear than for the public
eye, describes one of the more malignant phases of the plague-wind,
which I forgot to notice in my lecture.

"BURNHAM, SOMERSET, _February 7th, 1884_.