100 



NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 



ess, and that hail was made in that way. The 

 two precipitations, one in rain and one in hail, 

 correspond in time, place, and circumstance, and 

 apparently are identical with one another ; but 

 the perplexing question arises, How does hail 

 freeze in its peculiar form ? If a rain-drop fall- 

 ing from a warm cloud should pass through a 

 very cold current on its way earthward, it would 

 be frozen into transparent ice ; but that is 

 not the make-up of the hail-stone. The cen- 

 tre of the stone is opaque, milky, cloudy, as 

 though it were a tiny, frozen snow-ball ; and 

 around this centre are usually thin, concentric 

 layers of ice and snow formed like the layers 

 of an onion. From its appearance one might 

 say that it was a frozen particle whirled around 

 through rain and ice clouds, gathering bulk to 

 itself by contact, much like a snow-ball rolling 

 down hill on a moist, winter day. 



The theory has been advanced that the rain- 

 drop is caught up by powerful, ascending cur- 

 rents and carried to regions of snow and cold, 

 and afterward allowed by the declining winds to 

 fall back to earth ; but if so, how does it arrange 

 to get back in time to form the first fall from a 

 thunder cloud ? It is more probable perhaps 

 that the top of the thunder cloud reaches up 



