'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From December 1854 to March 1856. (New Issue.) Edited by the Secretary. Volume XII.' [‎14] (125/258)

14
DR. G. BUIST
No hailstones have ever been known to fall in India to be compared in
magnitude to very many of those enumerated at the close of the quotation
given in a previous page; nor are our much vaunted blocks of ice the
size of some which seem to have filled Dr. Thomson with incredulity, of
anything like equal in size to at least a dozen described by 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. himself as having fallen in Europe. The great distinguishing charac
teristic of the Indian, as contrasted with the European hailstorm, is, that
with us in the great majority of cases the hail which falls exceeds the size of
filberts, at home it seldom amounts to that of peas or beaus ; that which
here is the rule, occurring many times every year, is in Europe the excep
tion—not, happening, oftener than once iu ten or twenty years. At home
there is, perhaps, scarcely a hailstorm of note that has occurred within the
past five hundred years, a description of which may not be found in print:
we have iu India no records of any natural phenomena whatever above a
century old; Naiive historians while they chronicle with the most painful
minuteness the births, marriages, and deaths, and all the most trivial inci
dents in the families of tlieir chiefs, passing over in silence the devastations
of floods, earthquakes, and volcanoes, and all the more terrible and destruc
tive phenomena of nature ; and that anything so trivial as a hailstorm
should be noticed by them is not to be for a moment imagined. It is
little more than seventy years (1778) k since printing made its appearance
in India ; and with the press our first attempts to collect local information
began yet I question if up to within the last ten or twenty years we have
anywhere on record accounts of half the most destructive hailstorms or
other similarly marvellous things that have occurred within our dominions.
1. HAILSTORM AT SECUNDERABAD 03 THE lllH MARCH 1851. Lat. 17'30 N., Long. 78*20 E
Alt. 1837.
M*r r T^ n V a t? e r derabad WriteS asfo!lows < under date 5th April : _«0n the 2nd
faH of hail ^ ^ ° n the 1Uh ° f laSt month there a very severe
of daf k h cltd;t„S“ m 3 - Th6 ^ n ° W ,0 ° k3 VCry -Urge masses
2.— HAILSTORM AT MEERUT ON THE 23TH MARCH, 1851.—LAT. 29*0 N., LONG. 77*45 E.
of Th e e S i l^r^:^ ol r h T orm at Meerut ° n the 2sth Mareh is fr ° m
— If. Apnl —■ ° n ? nda y last JIeer ut was visited by a hailstorm of unusual violence.
.Tent on sue n h e o Wer - e COns if erabl * lar S er pigeons’ eggs, the usual standard of measure-
f f ° f , We rc 2 ret t0 h ear that much damage was done in the gardens and
fields of the station and district. The Drosueots nf tho e •. fearueus anu
to a nossihilitv and th» ra P 1,0019 ot ensuing fruit season are now reduced
to a possibility, and the splendid crops are said to have suffered very severely.
3.—HAILSTORM AT DELHI ON THE 19TH APRIL 1851. LAT. 29’31 N., LONG 77*13 E
) , w Hie erop., The hailstone!, wliieh eontlnoeil lo f.U fer more tljan halt an hour.