gS ie EEO. Y vos 
till now at a diftance from the fcene of action, has fuffered 
no material change in its natural eletric-flate* ; and is on 
the contrary fraught with all the cold which is natural to 
the region of the atmofphere from whence it came. In 
falling through this adventitious current of air, the drops 
of rain, precipitating from the body of clouds above, are 
congealed into ice, and defcend in hail, which as it falls 
collects other {nowy or icy particles round it; a hail-ftone 
when it comes to the ground refembling denfe fnow with 
a nucleus or kernel of folid ice in the middle. 
That the air which this hail-ftone falls through is cold= 
er than the region from whence it defcends, may be thus 
proved, viz. If the freezing took place where, and as foon 
as the vapors were firft fet at liberty by a flath of lighten- 
ing, it would be impoflible for them ever to unite into 
drops, but they muft defcend in the fineft chryftals, an 
afflemblage of which conftitutes a flake of fnow; the nu= 
cleus, or proper hail-ftone then muft have been firft a fluid 
drop, and afterwards congealed in its fall through a colder 
region than that in which it was formed. 
It may be further objected, that.a thunder cloud, in the 
eaftern parts of America, always makes its firft appearance 
in the weft, over the land, its progrefs being towards the 
fea; which feems to contradi& the fuppofition in the the- 
ory, that the vapors of which it confifts are chiefly fuppli- 
ed from the fea. 
To which I anfwer, 1. That a thunder cloud is with us 
very rarely, indeed fcarcely ever formed in the weft, with- 
out a fea-breeze fpringing up previoully from the eaft, 
2. That the fea air, as obferved before, always abounds 
with vapors, although from the caufes already affigned, 
they are ufually, at their firft rifing, invifible. 3. That the 
firft appearance of a cloud will always be where the vapors 
are 
* This fuppofition will be juftified by confidering, that fuch is frequently the ftate of the 
atmofphere, that the thunder clouds which are formed in itare but of {mall extent; notwith- 
ftanding which, the change in the fate of the air occafioned by them is perceived to the dif- 
tance of many leagues round. 
