86 Mr. P. J. Martin on a remarlcahle Fall of Hail, 
western extremity, and its ravages did not extend more than 
about a mile and a quarter wide, whilst in length they reached 
about twenty miles, viz. from Arundel to the vicinity of 
Horsham. Hail fell, I believe, further on, quite into Surrey, 
but the fall of large stones was limited to the space above 
mentioned. We had been watching the rise, and dissolution 
into the expanding body of the nimbus of many heavy cumuli 
from the south and south-west, with some grand explosions 
of thunder and lightning, when we observed a dense mass 
approach us in that direction from the Arundel quarter, ac- 
companied by a rushing or rather roaring sound, clearly to 
be distinguished from the thunder, and attended with a pretty 
sharp blast of wind. In a few moments hail of the ordinary hind 
began to fall copiously, and this in a few moments more was 
intermixed with stones of an enormous size, the slapping of 
which could be clearly distinguished from the roaring of the 
mass of other hail on the slated roof of the summer-house in 
which I and my family had taken shelter. Very little rain fell, 
and the duration of the hail-storm was about ten minutes, only 
five of which was occupied by the fall of the largest hail-stones. 
On its clearing off, the ground was observed to be whitened 
by the hail, amongst which the large stones lay like tennis-balls 
amongst marbles; and on measuring some of them, after they 
had lain several minutes melting on the ground, we found 
many five, six, and seven inches in circumference. These 
large stones were more compact in their structure than the 
smaller ones, and were all of the flattened spheroidal form, 
and likened by many of the common people in size and shape 
to their thick old-fashioned watches. A dead calm succeeded 
to the passage of the storm, and the atmosphere continued to 
be encumbered with dark clouds, but without any more rain 
during the night. 
The congelation of large drops of rain at the moment of 
aggregation, and the formation of ordinary hail, and even 
a considerable accretion of more ice to the original globule 
in its passage downwards, do not seem to be very difficult of 
comprehension and explanation. But there is only one way in 
which I can suppose such masses of ice as these can be sus- 
pended long enough in the atmosphere to grow to such 
enormous sizes, and that is by the assistance of a nubilar 
whirlwind or water-spout [Tromhe aerienne) with sufficient 
power to keep them in its whorl, and to resist the earth’s at- 
traction, whilst the concretive action is going on, till their 
momentum overcomes the suspending power, or till they are 
thrown beyond the range of its intensity. That such operations 
