CHAP. If.] CLIMATE OF KANDY. HAIL. 69 



In all the mountain valleys, the soil being warmer 

 than the air, vapour abounds in the early morning 

 for the most part of the year. This greatly adds to the 

 dullness of travelling before dawn ; but, generally 

 speaking, the mist is not wetting, as it is charged with 

 the same electricity as the surface of the earth and the 

 human body. When seen from the heights, it is a 

 singular object, as it lies compact and white as snow 

 in the hollows*beneath, but it is soon put in motion by 

 the morning currents, and wafted in the direction of the 

 coast, and dissipated by the sunbeams. 



Snow is unknown in Ceylon ; Hail occasionally falls 

 in the Kandyan hills at the change of the mon- 

 soon *, but more frequently during that from the north- 

 east. As observed at Kornegalle, the clouds, after 

 collecting as usual for a few evenings, and gradually 

 becoming more dense, advanced in a wedge-like form, 

 with a well-defined outline. The first fall of rain was 

 preceded by a rush of cold air, accompanied by hail- 

 stones which outstripped the rain in their descent. Eain 

 and hail then poured down together, and, eventually, 

 the latter only spread its deluge far and wide. In 

 1852, the hail which thus fell at Kornegalle was of 

 such a size that half-a-dozen lumps filled a tumbler. 

 In shape, they were oval and compressed, but the mass 

 appeared to have formed an hexagonal pyramid, the 

 base of which was two inches in diameter, and about 

 half-an-inch thick, gradually thinning towards the edge. 

 The pieces were tolerably solid internally, each containing 

 about the size of a pea of clear ice at the centre, but 

 the sides and angles were spongy and flocculent, as if 

 the particles had been driven together by the in-draught 



1 It is stated in the Physical Atlas j heard of a hail atorm at Jaffna. On 

 of KEITH JOHNSTON, that hail in the 24th of Sept. 1857, during a 

 India has not been noticed south of thunder-storm, hail fell near Matelle 

 Madras. But in Ceylon it has fallen in such quantity that in places it 

 very recently at Komegalle, at Ba- I formed drifts upwards of a foot in 

 dulla, at Kaduganawa; and I have I depth. 



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