M. De la Rive 07i the Formation ofHaM. 283 



ly flashes of lightning illuminated the massive vapours which 

 covered the old volcanos of Auvergne, while the sun still shone 

 upon a portion of La Limagne. We then heard a distant and 

 low-muttering sound which resembled a kind of rolling, and al- 

 most about the same time we saw a vast cloud advance from the 

 west to the east, pure white in some places, but principally on 

 its edges, and of a deep grey colour in the centre ; it approach- 

 ed with great rapidity, and seemed to be hurried forward by a 

 violent west wind, which we had not previously felt at Clermont. 

 This cloud was evidently underneath all the others ; its borders 

 were festooned and deeply slashed, and protuberances, in the 

 shape of long nipples, were suspended from the lower portion. 

 At a quarter past two, the anterior part of this cloud had ap- 

 proached very near to Clermont, and the noise which we had long 

 indistinctly heard was now very intense ; and I then very clearly 

 distinguished a very rapid motion in the edges of the cloud ; 

 these edges seemed to me to be undulating, but in the position in 

 which I was, what appeared to be undulations must have been the 

 product of a very violent agitation. I then imagined that I could 

 distinctly perceive hailstones in the edges of the cloud, and I pre- 

 dicted to some persons who were with me the immediate descent of 

 hail. Accordingly, two minutes after having seen this whirlwind 

 kind of motion, there was a fall of hailstones, which instantly 

 broke all the tiles of the houses, and all the panes of glass ex- 

 posed to the north and west ; for the hailstones being at the same 

 time propelled along both by the north and the west wind, ne- 

 cessarily took the mean direction. 



The first hailstones which fell succeeded each other very 

 slowly, then all at once their number increased so rapidly that 

 in ten minutes the soil was covered with them ; some drops of 

 water escaped at the same time from the electrical cloud, and 

 then the distant rolling sound which we had so long heard en- 

 tirely ceased ; and the cloud freed fiom its swelling appendages, 

 was carried away by the wind ; after some hours the sun illu- 

 minated, with its pale and feeble light, that scene of desolation 

 which night was speedily about to envelope. 



It is not necessary that I should describe in detail the terrible 

 effects of these hailstones. Suffice it to say, that some branches 

 of trees two inches in diameter were cut asunder by them ; some 



