PHENOMENA OF A PENNSYLVANIAN HAILSTORM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 188, 3 November 1876, Page 7

PHENOMENA OF A PENNSYLVANIAN HAILSTORM.

►+ [Correspondence of the Beading (Fa.) Eagle]. At night we stopped at a farmhouse just at the foot of the hill, a spur of the Blue Mountains, that is near the boundary of Northern Berks. We were obliged to take quarters to escape the impending storm. It -was about 6 o'clock in the evening. All day long the sun's rays beat down on the hillside with fury, and we imagined the mercury in Beading must assuredly be above a hundred. Two Ion ._•■., low ranges of red-black clouds hung in the heavens east anrl west. Strange as it may appear, both of the clouds were wafbid towards each other. In the middle the sky was ashy gray, and straits seemed to stretch out their smoky arms towards Heaven's <lomo Ib appeared like the meeting of two great unkuown nations. Lonj, low, rumbling sounds of distant thunder seemed to shake the hills. The lightening flashed, and finally the sky seemed to be a noisy receptacle of wild and tumultuous rockets, bursting: and booming in their wild and terrible glee. At 6.15 the two great banks of black vapor clashed as if in a terrible battle ; then there was silence, terrible in itself, and then there commenced to descend a perfect -volley of hailstones. I cannot describe to you the wild, weird, terrible spectacle of such an icy volley. The heavens rattle and the hills echo. A terrible wind-storm arose, and great trees bent, and the leaves showed their white and silvery sides to be pierced by the bullets moulded away up in the sky. The hail descended for at least ten minutes. In that time corn and foliage were beaten down. Three lambs were killed outright. Currant bushes were flattened, and oats unharvested lay flat in the field. We rushed out as soon as the storm had passed and gathered the largest stones. Then came our greatest surprise. We were astounded at the grandeur of a mountain hailstorm; but when we examined the hailstones and found some of them of a dull green color and others a blue, we were doubly mistyfied. The hailstones we were accustomed to see were white and transparent to a degree. These were perfectly opaque, and seemed to be glass globes filled with a dull coloring matter. They were very cold, hard, and not in melting mood. Some were as large as walnuts. I may say they averaged that size. Our host examined them and pronounced it the strangest thing he had ever heard .of. We drew water from the well and emptied about three quarts of hailstones into a pail of water. The water was not discolored in the least. I never drank a glass of ice-water before as cold as that was. It had a peculiar sulphurous taste, very like the water from the hot springs. At first none of us cared to drink too much of it, but we finally concluded it could not Mil us, and we partook copiously of it. The aftertaste finally got to be bitter, and as the hail melted it became stronger. We tried to preserve the hailstones by freezing a large ! number together, but the next morning by 10 o'clock the mass had melted and that was the last of our mysterious ice. On our travel to-day we met Dr. Kirby, and we were pleased to learn that he had seen hailstones of this same storm. He pronounced it a most wonderful freak of nature. He attributes it purely to electricity and the combination of various currents of atmosphere bearing upon the rain drops high up in the clouds. He said he was shown a specimen of dark green hail that seemed to have animal matter in it. One stone was shaped like a half-moon, and the other had a smell of phosphorus. That had a reddish cast. He tried hard to preserve it by electricity, but failed. He said ordinary hail could be preserved, but this last species or kind completely baffled him. Another strange thing about it was that the territory it fell upon hardly covers two square miles along the mountain side.