Br. Franklin on MeteorologUaly ^c. 37^ 



the other three; more fully to (hew the proporr 

 tionable fize of them; and of the jaw bone and 

 grinders of the elephant, and animal incognitum, 

 or pfeud- elephant taken from Dr. Hunter's plate 

 of them. 



Meteorological Imaginations and Conjec- 

 tures, By Benjamin Franklin, LL.D. 

 F. R. S. and Acad, Reg. Scient. Paris. Soc. 

 ^c. Communicated by Br. Percival. Read 

 'December 22, 1784. 



'JpHERE feems to be a region higher in the 

 air over all countries, where it is always 

 winter, where froft exids continually, fince, in the 

 midft of fummer on the furface of the earth, ice 

 tails often from above in the form of hail. 



Hailftones, of the great weight we fometimes 

 find them did not probably acquire their ma- 

 nitude before they began to defcend. The a?r 

 being eight hundred times rarer than water is 

 unable to fupport it but in the fhape of vapour 

 a ftate in which its particles are feparated. As 

 loon as they are condenfed by the cold of the 

 upper region, fo as to form a drop, that drop 

 begins to fall. If it freezes into a grain of 



2 b J 



