Drops of rain, falling through a cold region of the atmosphere, are frozen and converted into hail; and thus the _hail_ is produced by _rain_. When it begins to fall, it is _rain_; when it is falling, it is converted into _hail_; so that it is literally true, that _it rains hail_. The further a hail-stone falls, the larger it generally is; because, in its descent, meeting with innumerable particles of water, they become attached to it, are also frozen, and thus its bulk is continually increasing till it reaches the earth.[90] A storm of hail fell near Liverpool, in Lancashire, in the year 1795, which greatly damaged the vegetation, broke windows, &c, &c. Many of the stones measured five inches in circumference. Dr. Halley mentions a similar storm of hail in Lancashire, Cheshire, &c, April 29, 1697, that for sixty miles in length, and two miles in breadth, did immense damage, by splitting trees, killing fowls and all small animals, knocking down men and horses, &c, &c. Mezeray, in his History of France, says, that in Italy, in 1510, 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 hail-stones which destroyed all the beasts, birds, and even fish of the country. It was attended with a strong smell of sulphur, and the stones were of a blueish color, some of them weighing one hundred pounds weight. The Almighty says to Job--“Hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war.” While God has such artillery at his command, how soon may he desolate a country, or a world![91] The aqueous fluid is in continual circulation. The constant _round_ which it travels, says Dr. Paley, and by which, (without suffering either adulteration or waste,) it is continually offering itself to the wants of the habitable globe, is much to be admired. From the sea are exhaled, by the heat of the sun, into the air, those vapors which are there condensed into clouds: these clouds are dissolved into rain and dew, or into snow and hail, which are but rain congealed, by the coldness of the air, and descend in showers, which, penetrating into the crevices of the hills, supply the springs: which springs flow in little streams into the valleys; and there uniting, become rivers, which rivers, in return, feed the ocean. So there is an incessant circulation of the same fluid; and not one drop probably more or less now than there was at the creation. A particle of water takes its departure from the surface of the sea, in order to discharge certain important offices to the earth: and, having executed the service which was assigned to it, returns to the bosom which it left.[92] Thus, as one of the greatest of naturalists says, “All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full: unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.”