354 Weather in Switzerland 



it ranged from 63° to 67° on days more or less sunny. On 

 the 15th, 20th, and 21st of June it reached 80° and 81°; and 

 on six days it exceeded 75° ; but in general, when the sun 

 was out, did not rise higher than fiom 70° to 75°, during 

 June, July, and August, and, in these months, was often 

 below 70° at 1 and 2 p. m. 



Main, — The quantity of rain has been excessive. With 

 the exception of three weeks, at distant periods, of continued 

 sunny weather, viz. from the 15th to the 20th of May, from 

 the 1st to the 7th of July, and from the 21st to the 27th of 

 August, there have never been, during the whole period, 

 more than three or four fine days in succession. The rain 

 was often heavy, and long-continued ; but by far the greatest 

 quantity fell on Monday and Tuesday, the 8th and 9th of 

 August, when it poured in torrents, for upwards of 48 hours, 

 over the greater part of the middle and east of Switzerland, 

 causing dreadful inundations, and sweeping away bridges, 

 houses, and cattle.* The lakes of Thun and Brientz, which 

 together are about 20 miles long and from 1 to 2 broad, were 

 raised 2 ft. in height by the torrents which poured into them 

 from the' mountains, and flooded the intermediate valley of 

 Interlaken ; and a similar increase took plape in the Lake of 

 Lucerne : while, on the same day, water-spouts fell on various 

 parts of the Cantons of Zurich, Argau, SchafFhausen, &c., 

 doing greater and more general mischief than for many years. 

 The rain was accompanied by lightning and thunder, on three 

 days in May, on one in June, on three in July, and on four 

 in August. The heavy and continued rains, lasting for a day 

 or longer, were almost always ushered in by a thunder-storm : 

 this was the case with the deluges which fell on the 8th and 

 9th of August. 



Hail. — At Lausanne, on the 14th of July, about 8 p.m., 

 we witnessed one of those hail-storms which, every summer, 

 cause such ravages in the south of Europe. A great propor- 

 tion of the hailstones were as big as hen's eggs, and some 

 even bigger ; seven nearly filled a common dinner plate. 

 They were mostly oval or globular ; but one piece, brought 

 to us after the storm, was flat and square, full 2 in. long, as 

 many broad, and three quarters of an inch thick, with several 

 projecting knobs of ice as big as large hazel nuts. This mass 

 •exactly resembled a piece of uniformly transparent ice, but 

 the oval and globular masses had the same conformation as 

 has often been described in these hailstones, and on which 



* It appears from the journals that the rains of the 8th extended into the 

 neighbouring departments of France, and in the district of Epinal destroyed 

 the whole harvest, causing a loss estimated at 400,000 francs. 



