478 METEOROLOGY. 



came near us, being* driven before tbe storm, but too mucli wealceued to 

 move rapidly. We took advantage of this and leaped into the ambu- 

 lance, choosing the lesser evil. Providentiallj" the wheels of the car- 

 riage became locked in a rail fence, and the mules were too much ex- 

 hausted to do any more running. We put the seats over our heads, and 

 thus protected, drenched, shivering with cold, and continually beaten 

 on the legs and sides, we awaited the subsidence of the storm. The 

 falling of the hail lasted twenty-two minutes, commencing at half past 

 eight p. m. It was accompanied with heavy rain, bright blinding flashes 

 of lightning, and a continuous roar, varied with sharp crashes, of thunder. 

 The rain ceased with the hail, but fell very heavily again during the 

 niglit, causing a rise of nearly twenty feet in the San Antonio river. 

 The curtains of our ambulance were cut to ribbons, and we scarcely 

 thought the mules would live through the tempest, but they did, and, 

 tliough much bruised and stunned, brought us safely to town. With 

 black eyes, bloody heads, smashed hats, bruised .arms, and torn and 

 rauddj^ clothes, we ai)peared as if we had just come from a free fight 

 and had been very badly used. Indeed, experience only could have 

 convinced us that any one could have endured exposure to such a vio- 

 lent storm and lived. 



We found our house flooded with water, and all the window panes 

 and Venetian blinds on its north side smashed to pieces. Persons who 

 were in the house des(iribe the noise of the hail as it struck the roof 

 and sides as exceedingly tei-rific. The next morning the town pre- 

 sented the appearance of a bombarded city. The houses appeared as it 

 thousands of shots had been fired against their walls and roofs at point- 

 blank range. The walls of our house, covered with an inch thickness of 

 plaster on the outside, show, as in the inclosed jthotograph, tlie iiinumer- 

 able dents made by the hail. Shingle roofs were broken by the hail and 

 scattered in pieces by the wind. Large holes were cut through tin roofs 

 and gutters. Several houses were entirely unroofed ; among others, that 

 of General Mason, who, with his family, took refuge in a doorwaj". The 

 walls of an old church were blown down and its roof deposited in the 

 street. Trees, in some instances, were torn up by the roots, and in 

 others thrown down. In one case a hail-stone penetrated the roof of a 

 house and did not spend its force until it reached the floor. The trees 

 and bushes were entirely stripped of their foliage, and small branches cut 

 off. The Indian corn was cut down as if with a scythe, and vegetables 

 and flowers beaten into the ground. The largest authenticated stone 

 that I have heard of weighed two pounds, though there are various 

 reports of five and six-pounders. The stones probably averaged from 

 four to eight ounces, and were of the size of the fist and upwards. The 

 very large ones, of two pounds and thereabouts, must have been few 

 and far between, as nothing could have withstood them. They were 

 irregular in shape, as if, in their descent, manj- had been frozen together 

 and thus formed one mass as hard as rock. 



