318 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



quired distance from the wired string, the other end being stuck 

 fast in the ground. If the electric fire strikes two inches over the 

 dry silken cord, (and it will sometimes strike a yard,) it would not 

 be safe to approach it; and no man could hold the string when it 

 strikes over one inch of the silk, or, which is the same thing, through 

 the air. 



After the electrical state of the string has been ascertained, the wire 

 may be slided away from it as far as possible (the silk ought never 

 to be less than two yards long). The other end is then to be taken 

 out of the ground and attached to the apparatus for experiment. 

 The wire is again slided up to the wired string, and left there during 

 the time the experiments are carrying on. 



The only method of getting the kite down during an intense 

 electrization of the string, with safety to the experimenter, is to 

 unfasten the silken cord from its hold and let all go: the kite falls. 

 I have frequently been annoyed, whilst holding the kite-string during 

 hot hazy days when no cloud was visible, by a rapid succession of 

 discharges, from which I had no other means of escape than by 

 quitting the string and letting the kite fall. The same thing some- 

 times happens in cold dense fogs in the winter. 1 have experienced 

 these rattling or tremulous shocks when the kite has not been more 

 than 30 yards from the ground, and the wired string at the same 

 time touching it. Hence great quantities of the fluid must neces- 

 sarily pass into the ground directly through the wire, in addition to 

 that which produced the shocks. 



The publication of these particulars may possibly prevent some 

 inexperienced electrician from receiving a death-blotf from his kite- 

 string. 



Young persons who are fond of kite-flying should also be cautious 

 not to have their kites up during thunder storms, as it is possible 

 that a wet string may transmit a violent discharge, from which a 

 serious accident might occur. 



Artillery Place, Woolwich, July 23, 1834. W. Sturgeon. 



ON SOME REMARKABLE CRYSTALS OF SNOW. BY W. THOMPSON, 

 ESQ., V.P. BELFAST NAT. HIST. SOC. 



On the 22nd of March 1833, when travelling outside a stage- 

 coach from London to Shrewsbury, and near to Daventry, the day 

 being up to this time mild and calm, (the weather for some weeks 

 previously had been excessively cold, with prevalent easterly and 

 north-easterly winds,) snow of the loose flaky kind, common to the 

 climate, began to fall, but mingled with it there appeared beautifully 

 delicate lamellar crystals, of uniform transparency, having a sphe- 

 rical nucleus, from which sprang 6 and 12 radii most exquisitely 

 formed, all the rays on each species being equal, and not in a single 

 instance deviating from the regularity oi* geometrical proportion, as 

 has on some occasions been observed. By far the greater number 

 of these were of the former species, " having 6 points radiating from 

 a centre." The figures 20 and 94« in the plates of snow crystals in 

 Scoresby's "Arctic Regions" represent both these crystals, the lines 



