TRANSACTIONS OP THE SECTIONS. 33 



to the north-westward, along the shores of Cutch and Sind, and to the eastward, 

 as at Sattara, Mahableshwur, in the Ghauts, and all over the Deccau, so soon as we 

 get some 1500 feet above the level of the sea. The climate of the eastern side of 

 India is in summer somewhat drier and hotter, as it is colder in winter, than along 

 the Malabar coast ; but there is no such difference betwixt them as to explain, so 

 far as appears, the absence of hail*. 



In Europe and America, according to Dr. Thompson and Mrs. Somerville, hail 

 rarely falls amongst or very near the mountains ; in India no such law obtains. 

 In my present and previous lists will be found accounts of hailstorms in the central 

 provinces of Ceylon, at Ootacamund on the Neilgherries, both 6000 feet above the 

 sea, and in contiguity with mountain masses of much greater elevation, Dodabetta 

 in the latter case towering to the altitude of 8500 feet ; at Sattara and Mahablesh- 

 wur, in the Western Ghauts, 1700 and 4500 feet respectively ; at Simla, 8000 ; at 

 NaineeTal, 6000 ; and at the Jummoo Highlands 1500 above the sea — the last three 

 in the bosom of the Himalayas. 



In Europe, hailstorms usually travel rapidly over the country in straight narrow 

 bands, of vast length, but very small lateral extension. On the 24th of July, 18 18, 

 a hailstorm passed over the Orkneys from S.W. to N.E., twenty miles in length and 

 a mile and a half in breadth : it travelled at the rate of a mile in a minute and a 

 half, or the speed of a race-horse ; ice covered the ground to the depth of 9 inches, 

 though the storm at no given place endured beyond as many minutesf. In 1788, a 

 hailstorm moved directly from the S.W. of France to the shores of Holland. It 

 marched along in two columns, the breadth of that on the west being ten miles, that 

 of the east five miles, with twelve miles between them. The one extended nearly 

 500 miles, the other 440 miles ; the destruction occasioned by it amounted to close 

 on a million sterling J. 



The Indian hailstorm falls in very limited patches, and seldom lasts above fifteen 

 or twenty minutes ; but the frequency with which hailstorms occur simultaneously at 

 places remote from each other, but nearly in straight lines, seems to indicate a ten- 

 dency on the part of the column to become continuous ; probablv they are at times 

 more so than we imagine, only that such things are not made known to us where 

 there are no Europeans, and where the country is thinly inhabited. The most 

 noble of these are the hailstorms which fell on the 12th and 13th of Maj', 1853, at 

 Ferozepore, Lahore, and Meean Meer, Peshawur, and Jummoo, places occupying a 

 line of 350 miles in length, right across the Punjaub : unluckily the hours at which 

 they occurred at these places respectively are not given. 



Although this is the only instance I am aware of, of a series of hailstorms bursting 

 out simultaneously, and, if not quite forming a continuous line, appearing somewhat 

 like a string of beads stretched across the country, we have numbers of them occur- 

 ring in pairs or in threes on the same day at places remote from each other. Our 

 first outbursts of hail nearly always happen within a week or two of each other, at 

 what may almost be termed the glacial periods of our climate ; and I have no doubt 

 that in many of these cases it would appear that there had been independent chains 

 of hail showers, or of local atmospheric changes, many of which were accompanied 

 by hail, had a greater abundance of records for reference existed. The following 

 examples of this will be found in the printed list : — 



Spa1pofe:;:::::::;::;;:;::}6o°^''^s^p^'^t' ^^h February, 1825. 

 AumTgabad ■■::.■::.■.■::::.■::: }75 ^^^^^ ^p^^-^ j ^th May, 1849. 



Deesa 350 miles from latter J 



* In my previous paper, prepared by Colonel Sykes for the British Association, and given 

 in abstract in their Reports for 1851, with some vaUiable emendations and additions of his 

 own, it was stated that no hail fell on the sea-level south of lat. 20° — it should have been 

 added, on the western shore of India ; it seems not at all uncommon on the eastern shore. A 

 hailstorm occurred at Pondicherry, south of Madras, in 1852, and various other places, if my 

 memory serves me right, which I have not been able to catalogue. Trichinopoly, Masidipatam, 

 and the Gossam Valley, some way from the shore, but nearly on a level with the sea, are 

 mentioned by Dr. P. Thompson, on the authority of Dr. Turnbull Christie and Colonel Bowler. 



t Thompson, p. 175. + /6jrf. 24,962,000 francs. 



1855. 3 



