450 
“ I also read the letter from Oporto, and its possible the Magnitude 
of the Hail may be somewhat increased by y e Relator, but have 
great reason to believe Hail in some places, have fallen of a very 
large Size, & from what I have seen myself, I think it was in 1715, 
Whilst I was a Sclioleboy in Yorkshire, at which time I see several 
an Inch in Diameter of various forms, Transparent and Solid as 
Common Ice, and had I then been curious enough to have sought 
diligentlier, its possible much larger might have been found. 
“ I think its plain these large kind of Hails are formed and freze 
in the upper Regions of the Air, where it must be cold beyond the 
severest frosts we ever have in our Climates And further, I think 
it self-evident they are froze during the time of their fall, for it 
would be difficult to account how such heavy Bodies should 
continue any time suspended in the Air, unless they were high 
enough to be out of the Earths Attraction, which I believe few 
will imagine. 
“ The Caterpillars you mention are pretty Common almost in all 
Gardens, but with all my industry I could never bring them into 
the fly state, though I have pretty often attempted it ; all I know 
of them is — they eat of several different kinds of leaves, and at 
last retire into the Earth in their Chrisalis state. 
“ You’l have, I find, a Grand Shew at the Instalation of your new 
Chandler ; I should like to see it. 
“ Yesterday was Guile, & tins morning I see your grandfather, 
who is well ; the Rest, I doubt not, will be communicated to you 
by other hands, which have more leisure.” 
[The allusion to the new Chancellor at Cambridge, and the 
Norwich “ Guile,” fixes the date of this letter. The new Chan- 
cellor was Thomas Hollis Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, elected 
1748, installed July 1, 1749. Norwich Guile was in the latter 
part of June.] 
All the copies of his letters want the signature, but the hand- 
writing is sufficiently characteristic to enable us to identify them 
as being those of Arderon’s. 
Although the letters of which copies exist are but few in number 
they afford sufficient evidence that his opinion was constantly 
sought for, not always on matters of natural history, but sometimes 
on the merits of a piece of poetry, as the following letter from one 
of his correspondents proves : — 
