From The Times, Friday, Aug 26, 1816, posted with permission of the transcriber, Petra Michinson. Geo. Extract of a letter from Bunfoot, near Langholm (Dumfriesshire), dated the 16th August:- "As your two sisters, who had accompanied you to Carlisle, were yesterday returning to Langholm, in an open carriage, a thunder cloud, or rather water-spout, burst upon Irvin-hill. The wood that overhangs the Esk appeared in an instant as if growing in a lake; the road was overflowed, every little brook swelled into a torrent, and the thunder and lightning became tremenduos. The coachman, seeing no safety but in escaping from the desolation around him, drove furiously along. He had four bridges, over brooks and ravines which crosses the road, to pass. The wheels of the carriage were hardly off the last of them when it gave way, and the alarm which its bursting gave the travellers was increased by the lightning having split, at nearly the same moment, a large oak tree within a few yards of them. I have just come back from surveying the scene of desolation, and can hardly yet understand how they escaped. The road for several miles is entirely carried away; all the bridges are broken; and in the one which burst at the moment the carriage passed it, the waters have left a chasm between 40 and 50 feet deep. The effects of this storm, which lasted from a quarter past two o'clock till within a quarter of four, appear incredible. In the narrow spot where it raged, upwards of a thousand trees have been torn up by the roots; and such was its violence, that of the stones that formed the materials of the wall on the road-side and of the bridges, hardly a vestige remains." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~