WHAT ARE HAILSTONES.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2929, 1 August 1911, Page 7

WHAT ARE HAILSTONES.

If it was not for the countless trillions of dust particles that float separately, invisible in the atmos-

phere, there could be no rain drops, snowcrystals, or hailstones. From a perfectly dustless atmosphere the moisture would descend in ceaseless lain without drops. The dust particles serve as nuclei about which vapour gathers. The snow-crystal is the most beautiful creation of the aerial moisture, and the hailstone is the most extraordinary. The heart of every hailstone is a tiny speck of dust. Such a speck, with a little moisture condensed about it, is the germ from which may be formed a hailstone capable of felling a man or smashing a window. Hut first it must be caught up by a current of air and carried to the level of the lofty cirrus clouds, live or six, or even ten, miles high. Then, continually growing by fresh accessions of moisture, it begins its long plunge to the earth spinning through the cloud, and flashing in the sun like a diamond bolt shot from a rainbow.