196 ON A REMARKABLE SHOWER OF HAIL 



touched the north-east corner of the island of Sanda. Mr 

 Lindsay (already mentioned) happened at this time to be at 

 the house of Mr Strang of Lopness, situated in that part of 

 Sanda. Although the main force of the shower was now 

 spent, the effects were still formidable ; a good deal of the 

 glass in the windows having been shattered. As the cloud 

 was passing off, it occurred to Mr Lindsay to observe the state 

 of Mr Strang's barometer ; and he found the mercury sunk 

 so low, that it was necessary to mark its place on the wooden 

 frame, the scale, as is not uncommon in old barometers con- 

 structed for this country, not being graduated lower than 28 

 inches. Lieutenant Baikie, R. N. has since extended the 

 scale, and found Mr Lindsay's mark to indicate 27.76. When 

 the cloud had completely passed, Mr Lindsay, having gone 

 into the garden, observed that the " cabbages were perforated 

 as if musket-bullets had been shot against them." — " About 

 an hour afterwards," he adds, " I picked up some that still re- 

 mained undissolved, and found that they measured l/^th inch 

 in diameter. They were for the most part of a spheroidal 

 form, consisting of a nucleus resembling common hail, occu- 

 pying about one-third of the diameter, encrusted by a coating 

 of transparent ice. Some of the stones, however, were irre- 

 gularly formed into a sort of crystallized mass." Mr Strang's 

 house is situated about twenty feet above the medium level of 

 the sea. 



The last remains of the shower, it may be added, were 

 slightly felt on the south-east point of the island of North Ro- 

 naldsha. 



The whole extent of the course of the hail-storm, from S. W. 

 to N. E., was thus little more than twenty miles ; and, as near- 

 ly as I can learn, it travelled this space in less than half an 

 hour, or at the rate of a mile in a minute and a half, as it 

 required between eight and nine minutes for its passage over 



Mr 



