390 Scientific Intelligence. Meteorology. 



without rupturing them. Although these points were acute, 

 and their faces were united by sharp edges, I found it impossi- 

 ble to recognise any thing like true crystals. The size of these 

 acute (diedres) angles varied upon the same edge, and the num- 

 ber of sides on these kinds of pyramids were likewise very 

 variable. They melted rapidly by fusion, and the hailstone 

 then appeared mammillary ; it even appeared to be irregular- 

 ly broken, when, more completely melted, it rested on the 

 ground, or on the fragments of stone, on which it disappeared. 

 One fact which appeared very remarkable, was the existence of 

 small snowy nuclei, about the tenth of an inch in diameter, and 

 similar to the central portion of the principal hailstone, which were 

 encased to some depth in the exterior and transparent part of 

 the hailstone. They seemed to have penetrated into it in the 

 same manner that a hot body sinks into any mass on which it 

 falls. I succeeded in extracting many of these small white balls, 

 which consequently were not very intimately united with the part 

 into which they certainly had penetrated. I also remarked some 

 hailstones which had two, and even a greater number of nuclei, 

 but there was no kind of division between them, by which they 

 might be separated into so many distinct hailstones. The 

 hailstones on which these observations were made, were far 

 from being hard. They all floated on the surface of water, 

 and were consequently specifically lighter. In a very few of 

 them I found a greyish powdery matter, which was quite in the 

 interior. After all the irregularity which has been pointed out, 

 it would not be easy accurately to state the size of these hail- 

 stones ; but I can, without any hesitation, state that, after being 

 freed of their affinities, the largest were nearly the size of a 

 pullet's egg, and had the same elongated form. The smallest 

 were decidedly spherical, and were about an inch in diameter. 

 In falling, their descent was not very rapid, nor was it equally 

 so with them all. Their direction was generally very nearly 

 from the north ; but it occasionally varied a little, both towards 

 the east and the west. The temperature of the external atmo- 

 sphere was not under 61 Fahr. during the fall of the hail The 

 maximum of the temperature, from the previous evening, had 

 been in the shade, and with a northern exposure 87, and the 

 minimum during the night 64 Fahr. Having collected a con- 



