190 LIEUT.-COLONEL SYKES ON THE ATMOSPHERIC TIDES 



marking that vortex of heated air, which in its whirl carries up dust, sand, straw, 

 baskets, clothes, and other light matters, to a height of one or two hundred yards or 

 more. They are not dangerous, but particularly troublesome in a camp, striking the 

 tents, and scattering about all light loose matters on the surface ; and the rushing 

 noise with which they come terrifies horses, and induces them to break from their 

 pickets. They are sufficiently powerful also to lift oflf the grass roof of a hut ; and I 

 have known instances of officers' houses having shared the same fate. They appear 

 and disappear with great suddenness ; and I have been frequently startled by hearing 

 a loud sound of air rushing from all parts to a central axis, round which it furiously 

 whirls, and on the instant finding myself enveloped in one of these " devils," as they 

 are called by Europeans in India. 



During the dry months of December, January, February, and even during March 

 and part of April, electricity is occasionally so prevalent in the air, that removing 

 flannels with quickness from the body in the dark is accompanied with flashes of 

 light ; the hair crackles under the comb and emits sparks ; suddenly shaking lino- 

 musquito bed-curtains has been known to produce a flash ; and stripping down bed- 

 clothes has done the same. From the 8th of March until the 23rd of April 1829, 

 while in tents in the hill fort of Hurreechundurghur, at 3943 feet above the sea, in 

 stripping down the bed-clothes to get into bed I have frequently found my hand in 

 contact with the clothes enveloped in a flame of blue light. On the last date men- 

 tioned, at 1 1 o'clock at night, the flash was so broad, vivid, and repeated at every 

 movement of the bed-clothes, as to excite more than ordinary attention and surprise. 

 I had not the means to determine the hygrometric state of the air at the time; the 

 thermometer at 4 p.m. had stood at 90°'80 ; no change had taken place in the usual 

 movements of the barometer ; the wind up to 9^ 30™ a.m. had been east-north-east, 

 and from that hour until past midnight had continued at west-north west in gusts : 

 the night had not felt particularly dry; indeed the night of the 21st of April had 

 been so moist as to wet the tents. Electric shocks in filling Jones's barometer in 

 different parts of the country, and the terrific lightning of the storms in May, have 

 been already noticed. 



Hail sometimes falls in the hot months of March, April, and May, in those thunder 

 storms to which I have alluded. The hail, which in many instances is found to con- 

 sist of masses of transparent ice, is of considerable magnitude. In the storms of the 

 21st and 22nd of April 1830 at Poona, the hail-stones were larger than marbles ; and 

 they were of a similar size in a hail-storm in the fort of Hurreechundurghur, at 

 3943 feet above the sea, in the preceding April. I have known a mass of clear ice 

 fall exceeding an inch in diameter, and I have been assured that much larger pieces 

 have been picked up. On one occasion at Poona the hail-stones consisted of globular 

 masses of clear ice, in which was imbedded a star of many points, of diaphanous ice 

 like ground glass ; and I deemed the fact sufficiently curious to induce me to make 

 drawings of some of the stones. 



