Extract of a Letter from Dr. John Stevenson, Physician at Edinburgh, to John Pringle, M. D. F. R. S. Dated Edinburgh, 17 Feb. 1756, with an Account of an Extraordinary Agitation of the Water in a Small Lake at Closeburn, in the Shire of Dumfries; By Sir Thomas Kilpatrick, of Closeburn, Bart

LXXII. Extract of a Letter from Dr. John Stevenson, Physician at Edinburgh, to John Pringle, M.D. F.R.S. dated Edinburgh, 17 Feb. 1756, with an Account of an extraordinary Agitation of the Water in a small Lake at Closeburn, in the Shire of Dumfries; by Sir Thomas Kilpatrick, of Closeburn, Bart. Read Feb. 26, 1756. The inclosed is from Sir Thomas Kilpatrick, a gentleman of undoubted good sense and veracity. The lake I have seen long ago, but cannot be precise as to its dimensions, which I guess may be a quarter of a mile long. The phenomenon happened on the first of this month February, which was here the finest, clear, calm day we have had this winter. Till now I doubted of the accounts you believed, of agitations in ponds; now I do not, for not only this small lake, but some ponds near, it were moved. By a letter some days after, there is mention made of two returns of these commotions since the former, but in a moderate degree in comparison with the others. Sir Thomas Kilpatrick's Letter. Closeburne, 4 Feb. 1756. About a quarter before nine on Sunday morning, we were alarmed with an unusual motion in the waters of Clofeburn-loch. The first thing, that appeared to me in this wonderful scene, was a strong convulsion and agitation of the waters from the west side of the loch towards the middle, where they tossed and wheeled about in a strange manner. From thence proceeded two large currents formed like rivers, which run with swiftness and rapidity beyond all description, quite contrary ways, one from the middle to the south-east, and the other to the north-east points of the loch. There they were stopt short, as the banks are pretty high, and obliged to turn, which occasioned a prodigious tumbling and agitation at both ends of this body of water. There was likewise a current, which rose sometimes considerably above the surface near the west side, that I frequently observed running with great velocity an hundred yards to the southward, and returning in a moment with as great velocity the other way. What I noticed in the next place, was the tossing of the waters in the ponds, which were more or less moved as the agitations of the loch came nearer this side, or kept a greater distance from it. But as it is beyond my capacity to give a particular description of all that happened upon this occasion, I shall conclude with telling you, that the agitations and currents above-mentioned continued, without intermission, for at least three hours and an half, or four hours, when they they began to abate a little in their violence, though they were not quite over at sun-set. I had almost forgot to tell you, that this strange phænomenon was renewed on Monday morning a little before nine, and lasted for an hour and an half; but the motion of the water was not near so violent as the day before. What is very remarkable, there was not the least breath or gale of wind on Sunday till one o’clock: a circumstance, which helped us not a little in our observations. LXXIII. Accounts of the Irregularities of the Tides at Chatham, Sheerness, Woolwich and Deptford, in Feb. 1756. Communicated by the Rt. Hon. George Lord Anson, F.R.S. LETTER I. SIR, Read Feb. 26, 1756. THIS acknowledges the receipt of your letter of the 21st instant; in return to which I have sent you, for my lord Anson’s information, an account of the irregularity of the tides, having taken particular notice of them by the Lys, a French ship, having broke from her moorings three times in that week. The first time was on Thursday the twelfth instant, at about ten in the morning, it being then about high water, or rather ebb; so that we could not get her off that tide, but attended and hove her off the next, at about nine at night, which was sooner than we expected