The Virginia Gazette

EDINBURGH, Nov. 4. Yesterday, and the night
preceding, we had here an excessive fall of rain, which
occasioned such an extraordinary rise of the waters in
this neighbourhood as has not been known in the me-
mory of the oldest man living. The water of Leith
was so much out yesterday morning that the stage
flies from this to Glasgow were obliged to stop at
Saughton Hall and return to town, there being no
possibility of getting at the bridge, the water having
washed away part of the road, and overflowed the fields
around the bridge. Much more mischief would un-
doubtedly have happened there had not the dam dyke
given way, whereby the water was a good deal
asswaged. Upon this it came down with great rapidity
upon the places below. At Coltbridge it overflowed
a park wherein were a few sheep, which were carried
down, together with the enclosing paling of the park.
At the village of Water of Leith a bed, a weaving
loom, and a good deal of wood, were discovered
floating down the river. At Canon Mills the inunda-
tion broke into a tanwork, and carried off a number of
skins, several casks of oil, and a considerable quantity
of wood, lying at the new bridge lately built there,
and destroyed a great quantity of potashes, and a deal
of utensils for bleaching. At Bonnytown mills it broke
into the dwelling houses at that place, and filled them
so with water that the inhabitants were with difficulty
got out with their lives. In short every thing near the
water side was threatened with immediate destruction,
being either carried off or much damaged. What
tended much to heighten this alarming calamity was
the suddenness of the storm, of which there was little
or no appearance until midnight, when most of the
countrypeople were got to bed. We have as yet no
particular accounts of the damage done on the more
distant rivers, further than of some bridges and dam
dykes being broke down and swept away.