328 
Account of some remarkable Hail-Stones . 
rity in the shape of the hail-stones, and their hard and peculiar 
consistence, seemed to entitle them to some notice. They were 
included, almost universally, each by five sides or surfaces, four 
plane, constituting the sides of an irregular pyramid, and one 
spherical in place of a base. (PI. IX. Fig. 7, 8.) The length 
of the longest line did not exceed \ inch in any instance that 
I observed ; but as the hail-stones dissolved very fast, and as 
they were indeed, for the most part, rounded in the angles 
before I found them, it is probable they had been larger at 
first. I however examined them the moment they fell. The 
spherical surface appeared, to the depth of ^th or ^th of an 
inch, to be solid, as it was transparent. The rest of the hail- 
stone was opaque, consisting of crystals or minute columnar 
forms, perpendicular to the spherical surface. The transpa- 
rency of this last could not have been occasioned by the absorp- 
tion of water, as, although the hail-stone was equally moist all 
over, no part was transparent but this. 
^ Not having access to a barometer or thermometer at the 
time, I cannot say what indications such instruments would 
have afforded. 
66 The wind was gentle. The lower clouds, what are called the 
Scud, were frequently deranged (this was at 5J p. m.) and al- 
tered in their forms by collision with the lower current of air 
from the SE., which (probably by its greater heat) in many in- 
stances, dissipated the parts of the lower clouds, so as that the 
parts seemed to repel each other. Columns also of warm air 
were apparently making their way at this time up through the 
low-breaking clouds in the most distinct manner. 
“ If I might be allowed to hazard a conjecture, which I think 
neither extravagant nor unfounded, I should be of opinion, 
that the hail-stones had, in their formation, assumed the same 
oblate spheroidal shape I observed in those in Orkney *, in 
1818, and that by their splitting in the lower regions of 
the atmosphere, the form was produced that I have decrib- 
fid. The regularity in the form *j- may have been occasioned 
• Phil. Trans. Edin. vol. ix. 
■J- Some hail-stones appeared to have only three plane sides distinct. 
