On a Hail Storm near Jedburgh. By J. S. Dudgeon. 327 



The forenoon of tlie 1 3tli day of July was hot and sultry, the 

 thermometer varying from 65° to 70*^. The sky, towards noon, 

 became very black, and distant peals of thunder were heard, 

 every thing betokening the approach of a storm from the north. 

 Suddenly, about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, the storm-cloud 

 burst and the hailstones came down in blinding severity at once 

 and lasted in full fury for nearly half -an -hour. No rain fell 

 before nor did any succeed the hailshower over the area which 

 it embraced. Coming from the north and driven by a high wind, 

 the hailstorm commenced about 400 yards to the south of the 

 river Teviot, opposite to Chesters House, on the farm of Lanton 

 Mains, and travelled almost due south for about a mile and a half, 

 to near the top of the Dunion Hill, embracing in width from east 

 to west an extent of almost half a mile. The cloud, however, as 

 it travelled southwards, after proceeding one third of its way, 

 divided into two parts of unequal magnitude, the lesser and 

 sooner expended taking a south-westerly direction, the larger 

 and more violent keeping its original due southerly course. 

 There was thus left between the two areas of devastation a 

 wedge-shaped area which suffered only to a trifling extent, The 

 hailstones fell so thickly that at a distance of 50 yards objects 

 could not be distinguished. In size they varied, the larger ones 

 containing fully a cubic inch of ice, prism-shaped, in length 

 about an inch and a quarter and in breadth about three-quarters 

 of an inch ; their edges being rounded showed the clear ice in the 

 centre under the coating of snow ice outside. These covered the 

 ground after the storm had passed to the depth of quite three 

 inches, and though the thermometer during the afternoon of the 

 13th and the following day stood as high as 64° in the shade, 

 still quantities remained in sheltered situations to be collected on 

 the 15th. 



As was to be expected, the crops exposed to a storm of such 

 unusual severity suffered great damage. Barley and oats, which 

 were in full ear at the time, were cut down and broken off to 

 within four inches of the ground. Turnips, then beginning to 

 close in the drill, were left without the trace of a leaf. Even 

 pastures were blighted and scathed as by fire. It being compar- 

 atively early in the season, and the weather that followed being 

 favourable, turnips and pasture grass in most instances recovered 

 to great extent, but grain crops were for the most part irretriev- 

 ably destroyed. 



