ically formed as to outline, and the snow centers are almost
without exception round. Hailstones and hailstorms differ in different
climates, but they are more pronounced in the torrid than in the
temperate zone. Historians give accounts of hailstones of enormous size;
the very large hailstones being undoubtedly aggregations of single
stones that have been thrown together and congealed in the clouds during
their fall to the earth.

It is recorded that on July 4, 1819, hailstones fell at Baconniere
measuring fifteen inches in circumference, and very symmetrically
formed, with beautiful outline. Hailstones in India are said to be very
large--from five to twenty times larger than those in England or
America--seldom less than walnuts and often as large as oranges and
pumpkins. It is recorded that in 1826, during a hailstorm at Candeish,
the stones perforated the roofs of houses like cannon shot, and that a
single mass fell that required several days to melt, weighing over 100
pounds. It is further recorded that on May 8, 1832, a conglomerate mass
of hailstones fell in Hungary a yard in length and nearly two feet in
thickness. Still another instance is recorded of a hailstone having
fallen in 1849 of nearly twenty feet in circumference. This hailstone is
said to have fallen upon the estate of Mr. Moffat of Ord. We will only
ask our readers to listen to one more hailstone story, in which it is
related that during the reign of Tippoo, sultan, a hailstone fell as
large as an elephant. Undoubtedly one of two things was true regarding
this latter story; it was either a very large hailstone or a very small
elephant. The historian fails to give the size of the elephant. There is
no doubt, however, but that hailstones may adhere and form large masses
owing to the violent agitation of the elements that always attends a
hailstorm.

Hailstorms are almost universally attended by constant and heavy thunder
and lightning, together with violent winds. They usually occur on a
very hot day, and when the air is filled to saturation with moisture.
When this is the case a column of air is very highly heated at some
point, when it ascends with great force into the upper regions of the
atmosphere to a greater altitude than is common in the case of ordinary
thunderstorms. Here it meets with an intensely cold body of air, when it
is suddenly condensed and readily frozen as soon as condensed, which not
only forms hailstones, but sets free the energ