In Timb's _Year Book_, 1842-275, it is said that, at Derby, the fishes
had fallen in enormous numbers; from half an inch to two inches long,
and some considerably larger. In the _Athenaeum_, 1841-542, copied from
the Sheffield _Patriot_, it is said that one of the fishes weighed three
ounces. In several accounts, it is said that, with the fishes, fell many
small frogs and "pieces of half-melted ice." We are told that the frogs
and the fishes had been raised from some other part of the earth's
surface, in a whirlwind; no whirlwind specified; nothing said as to what
part of the earth's surface comes ice, in the month of July--interests
us that the ice is described as "half-melted." In the London _Times_,
July 15, 1841, it is said that the fishes were sticklebacks; that they
had fallen with ice and small frogs, many of which had survived the
fall. We note that, at Dunfermline, three months later (Oct. 7, 1841)
fell many fishes, several inches in length, in a thunderstorm. (London
_Times_, Oct. 12, 1841.)
Hailstones, we don't care so much about. The matter of stratification
seems significant, but we think more of the fall of lumps of ice from
the sky, as possible data of the Super-Sargasso Sea:
Lumps of ice, a foot in circumference, Derbyshire, England, May 12, 1811
(_Annual Register_, 1811-54); cuboidal mass, six inches in diameter,
that fell at Birmingham, 26 days later (Thomson, _Intro. to
Meteorology_, p. 179); size of pumpkins, Bangalore, India, May 22, 1851
(_Rept. Brit. Assoc._, 1855-35); masses of ice of a pound and a half
each, New Hampshire, Aug. 13, 1851 (Lummis, _Meteorology_, p. 129);
masses of ice, size of a man's head, in the Delphos tornado (Ferrel,
_Popular Treatise_, p. 428); large as a man's hand, killing thousands of
sheep, Texas, May 3, 1877 (_Monthly Weather Review_, May, 1877); "pieces
of ice so large that they could not be grasped in one hand," in a
tornado, in Colorado, June 24, 1877 (_Monthly Weather Review_, June,
1877); lumps of ice four and a half inches long, Richmond, England, Aug.
2, 1879 (_Symons' Met. Mag._, 14-100); mass of ice, 21 inches in
circumference that fell with hail, Iowa, June, 1881 (_Monthly Weather
Review_, June, 1881); "pieces of ice" eight inches long, and an inch and
a half thick, Davenport, Iowa, Aug. 30, 1882 (_Monthly Weather Review_,
Aug., 1882); lump of ice size of a brick; weight two pounds, Chicago,
July 12, 1883 (_Monthly Weather Review_, July, 1883); lumps of ice that
weighed one pound and a half each, India, May (?), 1888 (_Nature_,
37-42); lump of ice weighing four pounds, Texas, Dec. 6, 1893 (_Sc.
Am._, 68-58); lumps of ice one pound in weight, Nov. 14, 1901, in a
tornado, Victoria (_Meteorology of Australia_, p. 34).
Of course it is our acceptance that these masses not only accompanied
tornadoes, but were brought down to this earth by tornadoes.
Flammarion, _The Atmosphere_, p. 34:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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