182 Mr. Charles Tomlinson on 



many of them measuring 3J inches in diameter, or nearly a 

 foot in circumference ; 84 human beings and about 3000 oxen 

 were killed. At Nainee Tal, a sanatorium in the Lower 

 Himalayas, the noise of the approaching storm was as if 

 thousands of bags of walnuts were being emptied in the air. 

 The hail that first fell was of the size of pigeon's eggs, and 

 at length became of the size of cricket balls. Dr. Buist 

 describes the largest hailstones that fell in India as from 

 10 to 13 inches in circumference, and from 9 to 13 ounces in 

 weight ; the average maxima are from 8 to 10 inches in 

 circumference, and 2 to 4 ounces in weight, but ordinary hail 

 exceeds filberts in size. 



In the accompanying Plate (IV.) I have collected some re- 

 markable figures of hailstones, a number of which (1 to 8) fell 

 during a storm which I witnessed at Leipzig on August 27th, 

 I860 34 . I was proceeding by rail from Cassel to Leipzig ; 

 the day was hot, and the afternoon sultry, the thermometer 

 marking 22° R. (81^° F.). About 4 p.m. copper-coloured 

 clouds appeared in the west, the sky darkened, and about 

 6.30, when close to Leipzig, a black cloud, streaked with white 

 bands, rose up like a pillar ; there was a flash of lightning, 

 and as soon as the thunder had ceased, a rattling noise was 

 heard, which was succeeded by a shower of large hail. Just 

 before this I had quitted the railway-station in a drosky, the 

 flexible leathern covering of which was drawn down, and 

 the windows on each side were up. The carriage had not 

 quitted the station when a fiercely wailing wind twisted the 

 leathern covering from its fastenings ; it fell upon my head, 

 when I felt a succession of rapid blows, and heard the crash- 

 ing of the window-glass ; the horse was rearing from fright, 

 but the porters secured it, and brought the vehicle under 

 cover. I picked up some of the hailstones, placed one on 

 paper, and drew a pencil round it. It consisted of a nucleus 

 of clear ice in the form of a flat spheroid, surrounded by 

 semiopaque ice with lines radiating to near the circum- 

 ference, as shown in fig. 1. Other stones were more irregular, 

 as in fig. 2, where the opaque nucleus is surrounded by clear 

 ice, this by opaque, while the outside layer is clear. Figs. 3, 

 4, 5 are from drawings made at the time, and inserted in the 

 Leipzig illustrated papers. Figs. 6 and 7 represent a stone 

 with ice crystals on a portion of the surface, while the other 

 portion is smooth and rounded, as shown in the outline 



34 The details of this storm are abridged from a work of mine entitled 

 " The Rain Cloud," published in 1876 by the Society for Promoting 

 Christian Knowledge. 



