'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From December 1854 to March 1856. (New Issue.) Edited by the Secretary. Volume XII.' [‎11] (122/258)

ON HAILSTORMS IN INDIA.
11
ing around us,* it seems generally supposed that these hailstorms are pecu
liar to India ; and many educated persons who have lived long in the
country are disposed to receive such narratives as those of the Peshawur
and Nainee Tal ice-storms as fabulous, or grossly exaggerated. To
correct errors of this sort, and if possible encourage observation, I may, I
trust, be pardoned for introducing the following quotation from Dr. Purdie
Thomson's meteorology, published in 1849, the year before the first collec
tion of Indian hailstorms was laid before the world. He falls into the
error of believing them nearly unknown between the Tropics:—
“ The following are examples of remarkable hailstones. In Scripture we are
told that hailstones were miraculously showered down upon the Canaanites, dur
ing the memorable combat of Joshua with the five kings of the Amorites. Need
we remind the reader of the plague of hail with which the Egyptians were afflict-
ed ?—when ‘ there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such
as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation,’—
when the terror-stricken Pharaoh cried, ‘it is enough, entreat the Lord that there
be no more mighty thunderings and hail.’ Miraculous as was this destructive
and appalling manifestation of Divine power, it is interesting to observe that the
laws of nature were not infringed,—it was electrical. Tibullus mentions the fall
of ponderous stones, supposed by Silvius to have been large hailstones. Holinshed
records that hailstones as large as eggs fell in England in the year 1202, during
the reign of John ; and that in the 20 th year of that of good King Alexander III.
of Scotland (1269), there rose ‘ great winds, with storms of such unmeasurable
hailstones, that manie townes were thrown down’ by their violence, and fires
spread throughout the kingdom, ‘ burning up steeples witli such force of fire that
the belles were in diverse places melted those of the Abbey of Aberbrothwick
were thus destroyed. In 1339, while Edward III. was marching near to Chartres
in France, his army was so much injured by a storm of immense hailstones, that
he conculded peace. In 1510, when Louis XII. of France made war against the
Pope, and carried his army into Italy, during a thunder-storm bluish hailstones
fell, weighing about 100 pounds. On June 21, 1545, there fell in Lancashiro
‘ hailstones as big as men’s fists, which had diverse prints in them, some like gun-
holes.’ On the 7th June 1573, hailstones 6 inches in circumference fell in
Northamptonshire. On April 29, 1697, a storm passed over Chesshire and Lan
cashire, which had arisen in Wales. Its course was two miles broad and sixty
long ; hailstones weighing 8 oz. and measuring 9 inches in circumference, were
gathered. On the 4th May, in the same year, a shower of hail fell in Hertford
shire after a thunder-storm, the hailstones measuring 14 inches in circumference,
and killing several persons. On May 15, 1703, hail fell at La Perche, as large
as an egg,—Parent. Large hailstones fell on June 7, 1711, at Rotherham in York-
* It is, perhaps, needless to remark, that nearly all the notices published below have appeared
in the Bombny Times. On the appearance of that from Chicknaikunhully, to which 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.
subscribes his name, the conductor of an English daily journal clearly considered the whole a
hoax and an impossibility, and for several weeks or months on end it seemed to im considered
the rarest possible joke to speak of the Editor of the Bombay Times, as Dr» Chicknaikunhully—
while matters of this sort furnish criteria for the truth of what is advanced in the text—where
the most commonplace facts in natural history are deemed incredible, and a nickname bestow
ed on him who promulgates them passes for wit, but little can be said of the state of education
even amongst “ the best possible public instructors,” as little for that amongst the pupils.