Cuckmere, the Ouse, the Adur, and the Arun.
These rivers, during their course, give up vapours
which hang upon the hill-sides, and rise into
the sky as clouds charged with the globules or
vesicles, formed by evaporation from fresh water.
Storms, as we shall see by-and-by, are battles
of differently composed clouds, and these rivers
and hills explain the collection of what we may
call the land forces of the coming conflict.

The instruments kept at Brighton to measure
the heat, humidity, and tension of the air
(thermometers, hygrometers, and barometers), gave
some remarkable readings for the 24th and 25th
of June, 1863. On the 24th, the highest and
lowest readings of the thermometer in the shade
were 73 and 67; the highest reading in the sun
was 90; and during the night the highest was
67 and the lowest 58 degrees. The storm
lowered the temperature, for next day the readings
were 70 and 66 in the shade and 85 in the sun's
rays, and during the night the highest and
lowest readings were 66 and 54. On Tuesday
the wind was south-west, on Wednesday it was
various, and on Thursday it was north-west.
The change in the tension of the air is indicated
by the following readings: at nine o'clock in
the evening the barometer marked 30.02; and
next evening 30.17. An inch of rain fell that
night.

Students of lightning often wish for opportunities
of studying it all over its range; more
than that, they would like to study the
atmosphere in the Polar regions, and where, as in
Lima, and far from land at sea, lightning is
unknown; but especially on tropical shores,
where lightnings never cease flashing, and
thunder is always heard. On these shores,
white with coral, blue with janthine shells, and
having palm-trees like forests of monster
umbrellas a hundred feet high, the air is
perennially in the condition which elicits thunder-
storms. There are vast differences in the storms
of different climes. The extraordinary thing
respecting the storm of the 24th of June last, was,
that it was a storm in a temperate climate with
many of the features of a tropical storm.

My place of observation was near the Black
Windmill on the west hill of Brighton. About
half-past six o'clock there fell some "heat
drops," heralding a shower. As the sun
descended in the heavens, dark bluish-grey clouds
overcast the sky, which, after sundown, were
more and more frequently lighted up by flashes
of sheet or summer lightning. I went out
for a stroll near home, and was soon joined
by two neighbours, one of whom delights in
astronomy, and the other in poetry. About
ten o'clock heavy rain-drops came drumming
down upon our hats like a shower of pebbles.
Driven in-doors, I set myself to watch the
storm. The evaporation from the sea had sent
up, during many previous days, clouds of a
different composition from those which had
been rising from the rivers, and winds blowing
from different quarters had driven them into
collision. And then began the most
magnificent battle of sea clouds with land clouds I
ever beheld. The warring clouds did not
appear to be more than a thousand feet up
whilst resting upon the land. A man who could
have beheld the whole area of the storm from a
balloon at an elevation of fifteen hundred or two
thousand feet, would have seen as grand a storm
as the imagination can conceive. He would
have seen, by means of the lightning flashes,
the white-frothed sea dashing against the coast
line from Selsey Bill to Beachy Head; with the
rivers running between the round hills; with
copses, forests, fields, cottages, mansions,
hamlets, villages, towns, church towers, cathedral
spires, and windmills. There was an extraordinary
variety in the forms of the lightning. A
flash of chain lightning is said to have been seen;
I myself noted sheets, darts, forks, zig-zags,
and fireballs. I have never seen, heard, or read
of, lightning of such various colours; there were
flashes of red, purple, bluish-grey, grey, pale
green, milk white, and golden yellow. No
human eye dare brave the dazzling brightness
of the fireballs. The unusually great variety of
the colours shows that there was an unusually
great variety in the composition of the warring
globules, or vesicles. And the thunder was, of
course, as various as the lightning. The sheet
lightnings, purple, bluish-grey, or pale green,
were followed by rumbling noises, like the
sound made by heavy artillery when heard
rolling over rough stone-paved streets at night.
The darts, forks, and zig-zags, were followed by
rattling peals, resembling the reports of
musketry when heard near enough for the hissing
of the bullets to be discerned in the noise. The
fireball explosions, by their thunder, recalled to
mind the simultaneous discharge of many guns
of the highest calibre. This great variety in the
colours and sounds was accompanied by another
remarkable feature—continuousness. From half-
past nine until a quarter-past one o'clock, the
lightning and thunder were without intermission.
The storm recommenced again at about
half-past two, and continued until after four
o'clock in the morning.

A withered flower was all the damage which
came under my notice at Brighton. During the
storm there was neither very much wind, nor
rain, nor darkness. Between eleven and twelve
o'clock, when the zig-zag lightning and dazzling
fireballs were followed by the grandest peals of
thunder, a drunken man staggered up the road
under my window, shouting, "Hoorah! the
brave lightning is calling; and I am none of
your cowards; I am the little man that braves
it." However, while this Ajax in beer was
thus boasting, every explosion startled him so
that he lurched half way across the road.

Very different was the scene that night at
Seaford Cliff. With good eyes or an ordinary
spy-glass, any one may see, from the pier-head
at Brighton, along the undulating cliffs, about
twelve miles eastward, Seaford Cliff, on this side
of Beachy Head. In 1850 I visited this cliff,
to see an immense scoop blown out of it at
its highest point by gunpowder ignited by
electricity. It was magnificent to witness. After