in Natural History, a meteor generally defined frozen rain, but differing from it in that the hailstones are not formed of single pieces of ice, but of many little spherules agglutinated together. Neither are these spherules all of the same consistence; some of them being hard and solid like perfect ice; others soft, and mostly like snow hardened by a severe frost. Sometimes the hailstone hath a kind of core of this soft matter; but more frequently the core is solid and hard, while the outside is formed of a softer matter. Hailstones assume various figures, being sometimes round, at other times pyramidal, crenated, angular, thin, and flat, and sometimes stellated, with six radii like the small crystals of snow.
Natural historians furnish us with various accounts of surprising showers of hail, in which the hailstones were of extraordinary magnitude. Mezeray, speaking of the war of Louis XII. in Italy, in the year 1510, relates, that there was for some time a horrible darkness, thicker than that of night; after which the clouds broke into thunder and lightning, and there fell a shower of hailstones, or rather (as he calls them) pebble-stones, which destroyed all the fish, birds, and beasts of the country.—It was attended with a strong smell of sulphur; and the stones were of a bluish colour, some of them weighing a hundred pounds. Hist. de France, tom. ii. p. 339.
At Lisle in Flanders, in 1686, fell hailstones of a very large size; some of which contained in the middle a dark brown matter, which, thrown on the fire, gave a very great report. Phil. Trans. No 203.
Dr Halley and others also relate, that in Cheshire, Lancashire, &c. April 29. 1697, a thick black cloud, coming from Caernarvonshire, disposed the vapours to congeal in such a manner, that for about the breadth of two miles, which was the limit of the cloud, in its progress for the space of 60 miles, it did inconceivable damage; not only killing all sorts of fowls and other small animals, but splitting trees, knocking down horses and men, and even ploughing up the earth; so that the hailstones buried themselves under ground an inch or an inch and a half deep. The hailstones, many of which weighed five ounces, and some half a pound, and being five or six inches about, were of various figures; some round, others half round; some smooth, others embossed and crenated: the icy substance of them was very transparent and hard, but there was a snowy kernel in the middle of them.
In Hertfordshire, May 4. the same year, after a severe storm of thunder and lightning, a shower of hail succeeded, which far exceeded the former: some persons were killed by it, their bodies beat all black and blue; vast oaks were split, and fields of rye cut down as with a scythe. The stones measured from 10 to 13 or 14 inches about. Their figures were various, some oval, others picked, some flat. Philosoph. Trans. No 229. See Meteorology Index.