212 niRKCTIOX OF WIXP IX I.OCAI, STORMS. 



directly over head ; the atmosphere seemed \crv sultry 

 while it was forming, with hardly a breath of air.- I could 

 not learn that tlierc was any special direction of the wind, 

 and think tliere was not enough to note. The cloud 

 formed so rapidly that the farmers in their fields did not 

 leave their work until an almost total darkness settled 

 down upon them, vet with the opportunitv of seeing a 

 hand of clear sky in all directions at the hori/on but a 

 few minutes before. There was a strange feeling ot op- 

 pressiveness in the atmosphere. 



^\'hen the storm commenced at one o'clock, p. m.. a 

 complete deluge of water first came down, followed al- 

 most immediately bv hail-stones and clnuiks of ice, se^ - 

 eral inches in diameter, which seemed pressed to earth 

 with a violent wind, chrushing branches down from the 

 trees witii fearful violence. The duration of the storm 

 was no more than thirt\- minutes, vet in a circle one mile 

 in diameter no green thing was left. The leaves, branch- 

 es, and e\en the bark, were stripped from the orchards 

 and shade trees. ,\ sugar-orchard standing in the storm 

 was destroved in the same manner. The shingles from 

 the roofs, and some boards, were battered from the build- 

 ings and broken in pieces by the ice. The glass and sash 



• 



were all broken. The grass crop was entirely destroyed, 

 so that the grass fields looked like ^^lowed ground, and it 

 was next to impossil)lc to find straws more than two 

 inches long. What became of the heavy crop of grass 

 ready for the harvest T cannot say. Potatoes well hilled- 

 up bv twice hoeing were destroyed, and the ground lev- 

 eled as though it had been done with a roller, and no 

 stocks of potatoes or corn could be foinid upon all the 

 ground. 



The hail-stones and masses of ice were piled up like 

 snow drifts in winter ; and twent3--four hours after the 



