THE 433201 EDINBURGH NEW PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL, EXHIBITING A VIEW OF THE PROGRESSIVE DISCOVERIES AND IMPROVEMENTS IN THE SCIENCES AND THE ARTS. CONDUCTED BY ROBERT JAMESON, REOIUS PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY, LECTURER ON MINERALOGY, AND KEEPER OF ‘TUM MUSEUM IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBUROX; Fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Ealinburgh; of the Antiquarian, Wemnerian and Horti- ‘cultural Societies of Edinburgh; Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy, and of the Royal ‘Dublin Society; Fellow of the Linnean and Geological Societies of London; Honorary Member ‘of the Aslatic Society of Calcutta; of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, and of the Cam- bridge Philosophical Soclety of the York, Bristol, Cambrian, Northern, and Cork Institutions; of the Natural History Soclety of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle; of the Royal So- ciety of Sclences of Denmark; of the Royal Academy of Sclences of Berlin; of the Royal Aca- 4 demy of Naples; of the Imperial Natural History Society of Moscow ; of the Imperial Phar- maceutical Society of Petersburgh ; of the Natural History Society of Wetterau ; of the Mine- ralogical Soctety of Jena; of the Royal Mineralogical Society of Dresden; of the Natural His- tory Society of Pariss of the Philomathic Society of Paris; of the Natural History Society of Calvados; of the Senkenberg Soclety of Natural History ; of the Soclety of Natural Sciences and ‘Medicine of Heldelherg; Honorary Member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of New ‘York; of the New York Historical Society ; of the American Antiquarian Society; of the Aca~ demy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia; of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York; of the Natural History Society of Montreal, de. ge. OCTOBER 1830...APRIL 1831. 70 BE CONTINUED QUARTERLY. 7} pa 2 af EDINBURGH: PRINTED FOR ADAM BLACK, NORTH BRIDGE, EDINBURGH ; AND LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, & GREEN, LONDON. 1831. Ly( 308 ) On Indian Hail-storms. By A. Tornsvtt Curistiz, M.D. Communicated by the Author. Is the last Number of your Journal, a new theory of hail- storms is proposed by Professor Olmsted of Yale College, viz. that they are caused by “ the congelation of the watery vapour of a body of warm and humid air, by its suddenly mixing with an exceedingly cold wind in the higher regions of the atmo- sphere.” * According to this theory it is very easy to account for those hail-storms which so frequently occur in some parts of the tem- perate zones, as in the south of France, or in the United States of America; for in such situations it is very possible that an intensely cold wind, proceeding from the north at a great height, might meet with a warm body of air highly charged with mois- ture, and thus cause a very sudden congelation, with the other phenomena that generally accompany such storms. But this explanation could not apply (even according to the Professor’s own showing) to bail-storms in the torrid zone, for any two cur- rents of air, within this zone, would differ so little in tempera- ture, that their sudden mixture could not possibly produce con- gelation, but merely clouds and rain, thunder and lightning; and, says the Professor, “ in this region we know not where to Jook for the freezing current, unless we ascend so high that there no hot air exists holding watery vapour to be frozen by it.” He therefore supposes that violent hail-storms are unknown in the torrid zone, excepting in one situation, viz. in the vici- nity'of lofty mountains covered with snow. Here, however, he is mistaken, hail-storms being by no means uncommon in differ- ent parts of the peninsula of India, and consequently at a dis- tance of many hundred miles from any lofty mountains *. We are told, in Rees’s Cyclopsdia, that hail-storms never occur in the torrid zone; and in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, © The highest mountains in the peninsula of India are the Neelgherries, a small group, situated between the 10th and 11th degrees of north latitude, and having a height of little more than 8000 feetabove the level of the sea, being not more than one-half of that which the snow-line would have in this situation.Dr Christie on Indian Hail-storms, 309 under the article Physical Geography, that they never occur there, except at an elevation of not less than 1500 or 2000 feet. This I will show is by no means the case. In May 1823, a violent hail-storm occurred at Hydrabad, which is about 17° north latitude, and has an elevation (1 believe) of not more than 1000 feet above the level of the sea. The hail-stones were of a considerable size, and a sufficient quantity were collected by the servants of a military mess to cool the wine for several days. A hail-storm occurred at Darwar, N. Lat. 16° 28’, E. Long. '75° 11’, in May or June 1825. The height of Darwar above the level of the sea is 2400 feet, but it is near no high range of moun- tains. The hail-stones had a white porous nucleus, and varied in size from that of a filbert to that of a pigeon’s egg. A aimi- lar storm occurred at the same place, and about the same sea- son, in 1826, These are the only instances of hail-storms which came under my own observation during the five years I was in India; but numerous others might be brought forward from the testimony of others. I shall only mention afew. Lieutenant- Colonel Bowler, of the Madras army, tells me that he witnessed a violent storm of hail at l'richinopoly, about the middle of the year 1805, when the hail-stones were nearly as large as walnuts. He also mentions a very violent hail-storm which occurred in the Goomsa Valley, about twenty-five miles west of Gamjam, and only a few feet above the level of the sea, when he was in camp there about the end of April 1817. It commenced about half-past three in the afternoon. The weather had previously been very sultry, with hot blasts of wind, and heavy clouds, which appeared almost to touch the tops of the tents. On the hail falling, the air became on a sudden as disagreeably cold, as it had been before oppressively hot, The same gentleman also witnessed a hail-storm at Masalapatam, on the coast of Coro- mandel, in 1822 (he thinks in the month of April) ; and others, at different times, in various parts of India. We are told by Heyne, in his historical and statistical tracts on India, that ‘ masses of hail of immense size are said to have fallen from the clouds, at different periods,” in the Mysore country ; and that, “in the latter part of Tippoo Sultan’s reign, it is on record, and well authenticated, that a piece fell near Seringapatam of the size of an elephant.” Of course, it is not310 On the Form of the Ark of Noah. to be expected that we are to believe this to the letter—we must make some allowance for oriental exaggeration. It is needless to multiply examples, for I believe there is not an officer who has been many years in India, who cannot bear testimony to the frequency of hail-storms in that country. Pro. fessor Olmsted’s theory, therefore, even according to his own account of it, must be abandoned ; or, at all events, it will only apply to those falls of hail which occur in the temperate zones. On the Form of the Ark of Noah. We bave a description of the Ark in the 6th chapter of Gene- sis; and our common translation, which is acknowledged to have given, with comparatively few exceptions, the true sense of the Hebrew and Greek originals of the Scriptures, has the follow- ing rendering of this particular passage: ‘“ Make thee an ark of gopher wood: rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of : the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof: with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.” As, in this translation, there is no modification of the dimen- sions of length, breadth, and height, very obviously expressed, we are by it naturally led to conceive the form of the ark to have been a parallelopiped, of which the opposite planes are re- spectively equal and similar. But there is a word in the Hebrew text, of which, there is reason to think the English translators have not apprehended the true meaning. The word is that which they have translated window, (in Hebrew ‘tzohar”), a different understanding of which will lead us to important modifications of our conception of the form of the ark. Several commentators have supposed that this word refers rather to the peculiar form of the ark, than to any opening in it analogous to a window, without however indicating in what