AQUEOUS ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA, 479 



in the hour. " Striking the ground," he states, "with such impetuous force, it is easy to 

 conceive the extensive injury which a hail shower may occasion in the hotter climates. 

 The destructive power of these missiles in stripping and tearing the fruits and foliage, 

 increases besides in a faster ratio than the momentum, and may be estimated by the 

 square of their velocity multiplied into their mass. This fatal energy is hence as the 

 fourth power of the diameter of the hail-storm." In the narrative of the Jewish wars 

 mention is made of a shower of hail acting with destructive effect upon the routed 

 Canaanites, and in the mountainous districts of Palestine, terrible storms of the kind occur. 

 The cattle have been destroyed in the fields, in the elevated regions of Persia, by the 

 falling stones. Sir Robert Wilson gives the following account of a hail-storm encountered 

 by the British fleet, while at anchor in 1801, in Marmorice bay, in Asiatic Turkey: 

 " On the 8th of February commenced the most violent thunder and hail storm ever 

 remembered, and which continued two days and nights intermittingly. The hail, or 

 rather the ice-stones, were as big as large walnuts. The camps were deluged with a torrent 

 of them two feet deep, which, pouring down from the mountains, swept every thing before 

 it. The scene of confusion on shore, by the horses breaking loose, and the men being 

 unable to face the storm, or remain still in the freezing deluge, surpasses description." 

 Hail-stones exhibit various forms, the spherical, the oval, the pointed, flat, and ragged ; 

 and their size occasionally surpasses that of those which have been already mentioned. 

 At Lisle in the Netherlands, in May 1686, the stones that fell during a storm were from 

 a quarter of a pound to a pound in weight. In Hertfordshire, in May 1767, they were 

 from one to fourteen inches in circumference. In the Pyrenees, several of twenty-three 

 ounces avoirdupois, fell in 1784 ; and a paper by the Abbe Maury read before the Royal 

 Society in 1798, mentions the fall of hail-stones, or masses of ice, in Germany, from half 

 an inch in diameter to the weight of eight pounds. 



The preceding statements receive confirmation from the experience of Mr. Darwin in 

 South America, as recorded in the intensely interesting journal of that eminent naturalist. 

 Referring to a posta at the foot of the Sierra Tapalguen, in the state of Buenos Ayres, he 

 observes : " We were here told a fact which I would not have credited, if I had not 

 partly ocular proof of it ; namely, that during the previous night hail as large as small 

 apples, and extremely hard, had fallen with such violence, as to kill the greater number 

 of the wild animals. One of the men had already found thirteen deer (Cervus Campestria) 

 lying dead, and I saw their fresh hides ; another of the party, a few minutes after my 

 arrival, brought in seven more. Now I well know that one man without dogs could 

 hardly have killed seven deer in a week. The men believed they had seen about fifteen 

 dead ostriches, part of one of which we had for dinner ; and they said that several were 

 running about evidently blind in one eye. Numbers of smaller birds, as ducks, hawks, 

 and partridges, were killed. I saw one of the latter with a black mark on its back, as if 

 it had been struck with a paving-stone. A fence of thistle-stalks round the hovel was 

 nearly broken down, and my informer, putting his head out to see what was the matter, 

 received a severe cut, and now wore a bandage. The storm was said to have been of 

 limited extent ; we certainly saw from our last night's bivouac a dense cloud and lightning 

 in this direction. It is marvellous how such strong animals as deer could thus have been 

 killed ; but I have no doubt from the evidence I have given, that the story is not in the 

 least exaggerated. I am glad, however, to have its credibility supported by the Jesuit 

 Drobrizhoffer, who, speaking of a country much to the northward, says, hail fell of an 

 enormous size, and killed vast numbers of cattle : the Indians hence called the place 

 Lalegraicavalca, meaning the "little white things." Dr. Malcolmson also informs me 

 that he witnessed in 1831, in India, a hail-storm which killed numbers of large birds, and 

 much injured the cattle. These hail-stones were flat, and one was ten inches in 



