176 Mr. Charles Tomlinson on 



been performed. Thus in ' Nature,' for June 13th last, an 

 account is given of a hailstone that fell at Liverpool on the 

 2nd of that month at 3.35 p.m., consisting of an opaque 

 nucleus surrounded by a circle of almost clear ice with fine 

 circular lines, and that was bounded by a frilled outline of 

 opaque ice. The writer goes on to say : — " If a hailstone is 

 formed during electric oscillation from cloud to cloud, and if 

 it receives opaque ice from one cloud and clear ice from 

 another, the alternation of layers would be a natural conse- 

 quence. The violence of the hail scarcely seemed as great 

 as their size justified, and this suggested that electrostatic 

 attraction had upheld them against the force of gravitation 

 down to a moderate height above the ground." 



Of course it is not meant to deny that in the formation and 

 fall of hail two or more layers of cloud may exist in opposite 

 states of electricity. All that modern theory contends for is 

 that the electricity and the hail are not related as cause and 

 effect. The hail-clouds do not often, if ever, assume the well- 

 defined planes described in Volta's theory. Hail-clouds are 

 generally very massive, of a peculiar ash-grey colour, very 

 different from that of other clouds ; the edges are much rent, 

 and there are swellings and outgrowths on the surface. On 

 some occasions the hail-cloud is made up of rounded clustered 

 masses with long processes shooting downwards almost to the 

 earth, before it discharges its icy load. Peron 22 gives an 

 account of a storm at Sydney, in Australia, in which there 

 were several layers of cloud. In the morning the weather 

 was fine and the sea tranquil, but soon after noon the wind 

 suddenly veered to the N.W. blowing in squalls. An enor- 

 mous mass of black cloud was driven by the wind from the 

 summit of the Blue Mountain into the plain below, and it 

 seemed so dense as to cover the face of the ground. The 

 heat became overpowering, the thermometer rising suddenly 

 from 73° to 95° F. The clouds burst open with a fearful 

 noise, and a dazzling lightning of a bluish colour everywhere 

 prevailed. The wind blew from all points of the compass, 

 and its violence increased in proportion as the disorder and 

 change in direction became more evident. Each time that a 

 fall of heavy raindrops occurred, the end of the storm was 

 looked for, but each time also there fell a copious hail from a 

 cloud that was far higher and blacker than all the others. 



M. Le Coq' 23 describes' a storm among the mountains of 

 Auvergne, where the hailstones were mostly of the size of a 



22 Voyage, i. p. 396. 



23 Quoted by M. de la Rive in a paper " On the Formation of Hail," 

 Edinb. New Phil. Journ. xxi. p. 280. 



