American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-04-12


Snow is one of the many objects which
absorb and are warmed by the solar heat.
On a sunny day you may see the SUBMITS
of the high Alps glistening with the
water of liquefac action, while the air above
and around the mountains may be many
degrees below the freezing point. The
same thing happens to the snow upon
your house-roof. The sun plays upon it,
and melts it. The water trickles to the
caves, and hangs in drop Ii the caves
are in the shade, or in declining sunshine,
or the air intensely cold with a brilliant
sun, the drop, instead of falling, con-
geals. An infant icicle is formed. Other
drops and driblets succeed, which both
thicken it at the root and lengthen it.
The drainage from the snow, after sun
shine is gone, continues to produce lcleles
until the flow of water is stopped by the
frost. In the Alps, DR.. Tyndall tells US,
when the liouefaction is copious and the
cold intense, icicles grow to an enormous
size. Over the edges (mostly the south
ern edges of the chasms, hangs a coping
of snow, and from this depend, like sta
lactites, rows of transparent icicles, ten,
twenty, thirty feet long, constituting one
of the most beautiful features of the
higher crevasses. But an icicle would be
incomprehensible if We did not know
the air, and still leave it st an icy tenn
perature.
Hail is another form of water. which
wecannot regard with Indifference when
the heavens are pelting us with solid mis-,
siles. have seen a whole city. covered
with stout red tiles, unroofed ny single
hsilstorm. What became of the windows
1t Ii needless to state. GLACIERS were IN
request for weeks afterwards. Like
rain. hail is formed when two or more
strata of clouds overlie one another, but
with a difference IN their respective physi-
cal conditions.
Nail is produced during tempests,
when the Temperature, very high at the
surface of The earth, decreases rapidly at
loftier attitudes. In that case the upper
clouds consist of icy particles, the middle
strata of watery vesicles below the freeZ-
ing point, and the lower strata OF vesi-
cles above the freezing point. Usually
those clouds travel in different directions,
end hail is produced when a conflict of
opposing winds compels a mixture of
clouds of such different temperatures.
The rain drops resulting, instantly frozen,
nave the time during their fall TO Increase
in size BIZ the condensation of water on
their surface. aud not seldom by combi-
nation, to unite into large and destructive
hailstones.
sTheformation of haiistones is always
rapid The cloudd from which they fall
are.neYef spread OVes~ 8 very wide area.
Sailing before the wind they pound and
riddle strips of land often less than mile,
and rarely ten miles, wide, although the
length of the strips passed over is some
times considerable. Hailstones have been
picked up weighing more than half a
pound avoirdupoia In some instances,
this weight, on credibic authority, has
been very much exceeded. On such oc-
casions, it is not surprising that trees
should be stripped of their leaves and
branches, the larger animals mutiiated,
s'small deer" and game killed outright.
The greater the development of electricity
+ in q tempest, the greater is the tendency
Of downfall of hail. Hail occurs prin-
cipally IN summer ana in the afternoon;
namely, under the meteorological condi-
lions that have just been mentioned
great heat at the surface of the soil. rap
idly diminishing higher up in the air, with
strong cloud-evapOration under the action
of the sun. Nevertheless, as the simple
conflict of an upper very cold wind with
a very hot ooe raised to the same lofty
region, may bring about the formation of
hail, it sometimes fails in winter, and
sometimes in the night, but those are the
exceptions rather than the rule.
AS water, during its metamorphosis
form, 80 does the dissection of ice, by
heat, prove that it possesses similar
structure. The architecture of the ice
over which we skate is quite as wonderful
as the flowers of the snow. All o,Ir lake
ice is built of six rayed stars wonderfully
interlAced. To sec them, take slab OF
pond ice, and place it in the path of a
concentrated sun beam. But ice and
water are so OFFICIALLY alike, that unless
the light fall properly upon the flowers
you will not detect them. Catching the
right angle of illumination, from separate
spots of the ice little shining points are
seen to sparkle forth. Every one of those
points is surrounded by beautiful liquid
flower with six petals, lying in all case:
parallel to the surface of freezing. The
central spot is vacuum. Ice swims OF
water because, bulk for bulk it is lighte
than water; SO that when ice is melted i
shrinks in size. The liquid flowers can
not then occupy the whole space of thu
ice melted. A little empty space i
formed in the center of the flowers, an.
this space, or rather its surface, shinesla
the sun like FURNISHED silver.-AU III
Year Round.