238 Literary and Philosophical Society. 



' It is possible that, in summer, much of what is rain, 

 when it arrives at the surface of the earth, might have been 

 snow when it began its descent ; but being thawed in 

 passing through the warm air near the surface, it is changed 

 from snow into rain. 



' How immensely cold must be the original particle of 

 hail, which forms the centre of the future hailstone, since 

 it is capable of communicating sufficient cold, if I may so 

 speak, to freeze all the mass of vapour condensed round 

 it, and form a lump of perhaps six or eight ounces in 

 weight. 



'When, in summer time, the sun is high and continues 

 long every day above the horizon, his rays strike the earth 

 more directly, and with longer continuance, than in the 

 winter ; hence the surface is more heated, and to a greater 

 depth, by the effect of those rays. 



' When rain falls on the heated earth, and soaks down 

 into it, it carries down with it a great part of the heat, 

 which by that means descends still deeper. 



' The mass of earth, to the depth perhaps of thirty feet, 

 being thus heated to a certain degree, continues to retain 

 its heat for some time. Thus the first snows that fall in 

 the beginning of winter seldom lie long on the surface, but 

 are soon melted and soon absorbed. After which the 

 winds that blow over the country on which the snows had 

 fallen, are not rendered so cold as they would have been 

 by those snows if they had remained. And thus the 

 approach of the severity of winter is retarded and the 

 extreme degree of its cold is not always at the time we 

 might expect it, viz. when the sun is at its greatest 

 distance, and the day shortest, but some time after that 

 period, according to the English proverb, which says, ' as 



