I50 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



went through a field was quite distinct. In two cases the farmer 

 afterwards reaped the one-half of the field not so severely affected. 



For two or three days previously the weather had been very warm. 

 At 3.30 p.m. on the 23rd, black clouds began to gather and thunder to 

 roll, in half-an-hour more the thunder commenced to rattle incessantly 

 and so continued for an hour. I saw no lightning except a brown 

 flash or two, as if a bird had flown swiftly by ; but the lightning 

 showed itself in large sheets in the next valley, five miles north, where 

 no hail fell. 



The thunder advanced until it was nearly over head, but it seemed 

 a great many miles off. Long banks of clouds came from the cast and 

 then ascended straight up. About 5 p.m. I could see the storm coming 

 down the valley. Presently it reached the house. The view of all 

 objects a hundred yards distant was shut out by the downpour of 

 hailstones ; they battered the roof as if determined to crush it down • 

 they struck the panes of glass in the windows and hurled the fragments 

 across the room. The noise was terrific. We placed the children in 

 the strongest room in the house, for we momentarily expected the roof 

 to be crushed in. The ground outside was white with hail ; streams of 

 water rushed wildly in all directions, for it was the middle of summer 

 and the ice melted as it fell. In about twenty minutes the storm had 

 passed. Heaps of ice lay in various places from 15 to 20 inches deep. 

 The largest pieces of ice appeared to be made up of several smaller ones 

 frozen together for they were of very irregular shape. I send a rough 

 map of the district with the course of the storm outlined, showing the 

 place of greatest density. There was no wind. The largest pieces of 

 ice were not cubical ; they were flattish, long, and broad, but not very 

 deep. Some were clear, and others milky-white. There had been a 

 heavy shower of rain early in the morning. 



From the evidence, collected from half-a-dozen reliable men and 

 from the position of the broken oat stalks, as well as from my own 

 observation, I feel inclined to the following theory: — 



The cloudy envelope over the valley became charged with electricity 

 to an extraordinary degree, until it became an electric storm which 

 began to circle round and to ascend into very high regions, carrying 

 with it masses of vapour. The higher masses of vapour were first 

 converted into ice-drops ; these were dashed together and congealed, 

 forming the largest ice pieces. The lower masses of vapour were then 

 changed into hail. The largest pieces being the first formed were the 

 first to fall, increasing their size as they fell through those below. The 

 smaller hail came from the centre of the storm nearest to the earth. 

 The whole must have resembled the figure usually given of a water- 

 spout ; but in this case the water was turned into ice-drops. 



[Mr. Bryant's interesting account is drawn partly from his own 

 observations, and in part from the evidence of a number of settlers in 

 the Owaka district who were eye-witnesses of, and in some cases, 

 sufferers by the storm, viz. : — Rev. W. G. McLaren, Messrs. Morton 

 (who was at the head of the valley and measured the hailstones just 

 after they fell), McCalman, junr., Clapperton, Todd, Dalton, Young, 

 and others. A correspondent of the Clutha Leader says :— " The iron 



