HAIL. 153 



and if we could draw off all the electricity from the hail-cloud 

 as fast as it was generated, it is not improbable that the hail 

 would be formed about as large and as abundantly as at present. 

 " But, even supposing electricity to be the sole agent in the 

 production of hail, hail-rods could not be expected to furnish 

 security against hail unless an entire continent could be studded 

 thick with them, for in the middle latitudes the hail-cloud ad- 

 vances eastward with a velocity sometimes of forty or more miles 

 per hour, and the hailstones which fall in one locality are those 

 which were forming when the cloud was many miles westward 

 of that point ; so that, to protect a small spot, the whole coun- 

 try for many miles westward should be armed with rods ; and 

 it is conceivable that a hail-cloud arriving over a region studded 

 with these rods might immediately pour down a large quantity 

 of hailstones which would have fallen farther eastward if the 

 rods had not discharged the electricity of the cloud." 



The following description of a hail-storm that 

 occurred near Bordeaux, France, in 1865, is thus 

 given by Flammarion, in his work entitled " The 

 Atmosphere," * page 393. 



" On May 9, 1865, for instance, a storm began at 8.30 A.M. 

 over Bordeaux and proceeded in a N.N.E. direction, passing 

 over Perigueux at 10 A.M., Limoges at noon, Bourges at 2 

 P.M., Orleans at 5.30 P.M., Paris at 7.45 P.M., Laon at 11 P.M., 

 and collapsing a little after midnight in Belgium and the North 



* Reprinted, by permission, from " The Atmosphere," by 

 Chamille Flammarion. New York: Harper & Brothers, 

 Franklin Square, 1873. Pp. 454. 



