158 



descending still, and either striking on each other, or 

 meeting with gales of wanner air, are a little blunted or 

 thawed, and froze again into clusters, and so entangled 

 as to fall in flakes. 



Even in our temperate climate, we have sometimes 

 had very extraordinary showers of hail. On April 29, 

 l6p,7> a thick black cloud, coming from Carnarvonshire, 

 poured such a hail on Cheshire, Lancashire, and some 

 other counties, that in a line two miles broad and sixty 

 miles long, it did inconceivable damage. It not only 

 killed all small animals, but split trees, and beat down 

 horses and men. The hail-stones, many of which, 

 weighed five ounces, some seven or eight, were of vari- 

 ous figures: some round, others half round, some 

 smooth, others embossed, or variously granulated. The 

 icy substance of them was transparent and hard ; but 

 there was a snowy kernel in the midle of each. 



May 4, in the same year, there was a shower of hail, 

 in Hertfordshire, which exceeded this. Fields of rye 

 were cut down as with a scythe : several men killed, 

 and vast oaks split. The stones were from "ten to 

 fourteen inches round, some oval, some picked, and 

 others flat. 



Mezeray relates that in Italy, in 1510, there was, after 

 a horrible darkness, a shower of hail which destroyed sil 

 the fish, birds, and beasts of that country, t was at- 

 tended with a strong smell of sulphur. Some of the 

 stones weighed a hundred pounds. 



4. The rainbow is always seen in the region opposite 

 to the sun, and never but when it rains on that side. Its 

 colours are constantly in this order ; the outermost red, 

 the next yellow, the third green, the innermost violet co- 

 lour : but these are not always equally vivid. When 

 two rainbows appear, the upper exhibits the same co- 

 lours, but fainter, and in an inverted order. The seat 

 of the rainbow is the drops of rain, on which the rays of 



