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IT was said centuries ago that lightning strikes churches oftener than residences. In reference to this saying Cotton Mather wrote in the seventeenth century: " New England can say so. Our meeting houses and our ministers' houses have had a singular share in the strokes of thunders." This summer of 1770 seemed to prove these assertions, and if Mather had then been alive he would doubtless have mentioned this evidence in support of his claim. The principal showers during the summer occurred as follows.

At about one o'clock in the morning of Sunday, January 7, 1770, commenced a rain storm, with the wind blowing from the southeast, which caused the greatest freshet perhaps that ever occurred in New England. The weather had been very cold and dry through the month of December, and ice had formed extremely thick and strong. The storm continued with violence all through Sunday and until the next day at noon, when the clouds rolled away, and the sun again appeared. A very high tide occurred at this time and the combination of storm, wind and tide produced a freshet which caused the water to rise in many places ten feet higher than usual, and to remain at that height for several days.