'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From December 1854 to March 1856. (New Issue.) Edited by the Secretary. Volume XII.' [‎10] (121/258)

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DR. G. BUIST
bearers knocked down by them.’ At Pubna on the 12th of April 1834, one of the
hailstones measured a foot in circumference, and another weighed eleven ounces.
At Benares, in February 1836, some of the masses of ice weighed two pounds. At
Secunderabad,on the 30th of March 1837,some of the hailstones were two inchesin
diameter. At Dum Dum, the artillery cantonment in Bengal, on the 8 th of April
1838, two hailstones were picked up which measured sixteen inches in circum-
ference, and better than five inches in diameter. At Jaulna, on the 14th of January
1849, the hailstones were as large as billiard-balls. On the 5th of February 1850,
at Gwalior, pieces of ice fell nearly two pounds weight, and apimals and some men
were killed. At Condwiel, near Sattarah, on the 7th of April 1850, some hail
stones were as large as cocoa-nuts ; the writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. says, ‘ I am within the mark when
I say they were as large as cocoa-nuts.’
I’o the above Dr. Buist adds Dr. Spilsbury’s personal notes of hailstorms
consisting of thirty instances. He speaks of goats and sheep being killed, and
on one occasion of hailstones being as large as hens’ eggs, and he mentions the
unexampled fact of a hailstorm in July in the midst of the monsoon. The above
notices afford ample and unimpeachable testimony to the extraordinary magni
tude of the masses of ice that fall in India in hailstorms. Colonel Sykes adds
that in a paper in the Philosophical Transactions for 1835, lie had spoken of tho
fall m masses of clear ice exceeding an inch in diameter in hailstorms; and on one oc
casion globular masses of clear ice fell inclosing a central star of many points of
diaphanous ice like ground glass of which he made drawings. Colonel Sykes
suggested that the operations of nature producing such instantaneous and
intense cold In the atmostphere, whether by electrical or other causes, and tho
singular aggregation of the drops of rain or particles of the water to constitute
masses of ice m the airjhad not received that attention from physicists which the
remarkable character of the phenomena seemed to demand.’’
feince then two hailstorms of much greater magnitude, and more dis
astrous consequences, have occurred than any here made mention of, that
in the Himalayas north of Peshawur on the 12th May 1853, when
84 human [beings and 3000 oxen were killed, and that which occurred
at Nainee Tal, a Sanitarium on the lower Himalayas, on the 11th May
1855. Of the Peshawur storm we have few details beyoud the fact that
the ice masses were very hard, compact, and spherical, many of them
measuring 3^- inches in diameter, or nearly a foot in circumference ;
and this fact seems to have been given from measurement, not by guess.
The description of the Nainee Tal storm, from the pen of an eye
witness of intelligence and information, is the best we possess. The ap
proach of the storm was heralded in by a noise as if thousands of ba^s of
walnuts were being emptied in the air. At first the hail was of compara
tively small size about that of pigeons’ eggs; it gradually increased in
magnitude, till it reached thedimensions of cricket balls. Pieces, picked up
at all parts of the station, were carefully weighed and measured, and the
results will be found further on.
In inc unhappy ignorance of the science of meteorology now prevail-