A REMARKABLE HAILSTORM.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3226, 1 November 1881, Page 4

A REMARKABLE HAILSTORM.

The most remarkable hailstorm on record is that which occurred in France on the 13th of July, 1788. It was divided into two distinct bands —the western one four hundred miles long and ten miles broad, _n_ the eastern one five hundred miles long and only five miles broad. There was a mean interval of twelve miles between them, in which space rain fell. Tho storm moved at the rate of thirty-two miles per hour, the hail falling for not more than seven or eight minutes at the Bame place. The western branch began at Touraine, near Loches, at half-past six a.m., passed over Chartres, Rambouillet, Pontoise, Clermont, Dauai, entered Belgium, and passed over Courtrai, and finally died out beyound Flushing at half "-past seven a.m., passed over Arthenay ahd Andohville, reached the Faubourg St. Antoine in Paris at half-past eight. Cressy-en-Valois at half-past nine, Cateau-Cambresis at eleven, and Utrecht at half-past two p.m. Though the hail fell for such a short time at each' place, the destruction of property was immense. No less than ten hundred and thirty-nine communes in France- suffered, the damage being found to amount to about a million pounds sterling. Some of the hailstones -weighed more than half-a-pound. There are several very remarkable features in this. hailstorm ; its extraordinary length, its comparatively narrow -width, and its short, continuance at one place. These peculiarities might be conveniently accounted for by supposing an immense cloud or body of clouds carried along by a steady current of •wind, ' and discharging as it moved in its course. But how can we conceive a single cloud bearing along in its bosom nearly twenty-eight million tons of ice ?'—which was about the quantity, estimating it at one pound per square foot, that fell to the earth during the storm.—Chambers's Journal.