172 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l6g7. 



Peninsula, called Wirall, between the -^stuaria of Chester and Liverpool, at 

 a town called W. Kirkby, where it hailed only for 3 minutes, it being on the 

 extreme point of it on the right hand, but it thundered dreadfully, and was 

 here about 3 in the afternoon ; but the main body of it fell upon Lancashire, 

 in a right line from Ormskirk to Blackburn, on the borders of Yorkshire ; the 

 breadth of the cloud was about 2 miles, within which compass it did incredible 

 damage, killing all sorts of fowl and small creatures, and scarcely leaving any 

 whole panes in any of the windows where it passed ; but, which is worse, it 

 ploughed up the earth, and cut off the blade of the green corn, so as utterly 

 to destroy it, the hail-stones burying themselves in the ground; and the bowl- 

 ing-greens, where the earth was any thing soft, were quite defaced, so as to 

 be rendered unserviceable for a time. The hail-stones, some of which weighed 

 5 ounces, were of different forms, some round, some half-round, some smooth, 

 others embossed and crenulated, like the foot of a drinking-glass, the ice very 

 transparent and hard, but a snowy kernel was in the middle of most of them, 

 if not all ; the force of their fall showed they fell from a great height. What 

 I take to be most extraordinary in this phenomenon is, that such a sort of 

 vapour sliould continue undispersed for so long a tract, as above 6o miles toge- 

 ther, and in all the way of its passage occasion so extraordinary a coagulation 

 and congelation of the watery clouds, as to increase the hail-stones to so vast a 

 bulk in so short a space as that of their fall. 



Another Account of the same Hail Storm. N° 229, p. 572. 



We had only the extreme skirt of the shower here, and there fell not above 

 100 hail-stones in our court, but they were much larger and harder than we had 

 ever seen. Some measured about 5 inches round. Scarcely nny of them were 

 so little as a mubket bullet, but most of them far larger, and of that figure. 

 Some indeed as large as hens' eggs, and of half a pound weight. Many sea- 

 fowl and land-fowl were killed. 



Account of a great Hail Storm in Hertfordshire. By Mr, Rob. Taylor. 



N°229, p. 577. 



At Hitchin, on Tuesday May 4, 1697, about 9 in the morning, it began to 

 lighten and thunder extremely, with some great showers between. It continued 

 till about 2 in the afternoon, when on a sudden a black cloud arose in the S. W. 

 the wind being E. and blew hard ; then fell a sharp shower, with some hail- 

 stones, which measured 7 or 8 inches about. But the extremity of the storm 

 fell about Offley, where a young man was killed, and one of his eyes struck out 

 of his head ; his body was all over black with tlic bruises; another person nearer 



