REMARKABLE FORMS OF HAILSTONES RECENTLY OBSERVED 



IN GEORGIA. 



[Extract from a letter from Staatsratli Aljicli to Cho.valicr W. von Haidinger. From 

 tho Journal of tho Austrian Meteorological Society, vol. iv, p. 417.] 



I take this opportnuity of giving you a preliminary notice of two liail- 

 storins, of both of which I was fortunate enough to be a witness. Tho 

 phenomena were of so unusual a character that they are well worthy of 

 a full and precise account. 



They took place within fourteen days of each other ; the first on the. 

 27th May last, at 3 p. m., the second on the 9tli June, at G p. m. The 

 localities were not far asunder, being both in the neighborhood of Tiflis, 

 near Beloi Kliutsch. The morphological characters of the hailstones, 

 which were very large, as much as sixty or seventy millimetres (2i inches) 

 in diameter, were as remarkable as they vrcre dissimilar. On the first 

 occasion they were oblate spheroids, resembling IMandarin oranges, while 

 their structure seemed almost organic. On the second there was a fall 

 of actual ice crystals, an occurrence which has never before been noticed, 

 at least as far as I could discover from the literature within my reach. 

 The stones were not mere lumps, exhibiting indistinct crystalline forms, 

 but spheroidal bodies of definite crystalline structure, overgrown along 

 the plane of the major axis by a series of clear crystals exhibiting vari- 

 ous combinations belonging to the hexagonal system. The commonest 

 forms were those which occur in calcite and specular iron. Of the for- 

 mer type, by far the most abundant were combinations of the scaleu- 

 ohedron, with rhombohedral faces ; crystals of fifteen to twenty millime- 

 tres (f inch) in height, and corresponding thickness, prettily grouped with 

 combinations of the prism and obtuse rhombohedra. The terminal plane 

 was also occasionall3^ noticeable. Some which fell at the begiuning of 

 the storm were flat, tabular, crystalline masses, thirty to forty millime- 

 tres (li inch) in diameter, resembling the so-called " eisen-rose," which 

 occurs at St. Gotthardt. 



The stones, when picked up quite fresh, showed sharp eelges, with 

 faces which were for the most part slightly curved like those of diamond; 

 however, those which I took to belong to the scalenohedron were per- 

 fectly plane. 



I was in the open air when each of tlie storms began, and was able to 

 gain shelter before I received unj injury. This was fortunate, for the 

 damage done, even to large trees, was very serious. 



I reached home in a quarter of an hour, and found a pail full of the 

 largest stones, which had been collected as soon as the first fright had 

 passed over. My house was not much damaged. I sat down at once 

 and drew ten of these remarkable forms, which had scarcely undergone 

 any alteration. 



1 have often thought over our conversations about hail, and I see that 

 if I now applied all the theories which have ever been broached to the 

 fiicts which have come under my own notice, not a single one of them 

 will give me any light toward their explanation. I would ask how such 

 a regular growth of crystalline masses, reminding us in their character 



