they consist of a greater portion of snow or ice. If hailstones
consisted of the large drops of showers frozen in their descent, they
would consist of pure transparent ice.

As hail is only produced in summer, and is always attended with storms,
some philosophers have believed that the sudden departure of electricity
from a cloud may effect something yet unknown in this phenomenon; but it
may happen in summer independent of electricity, because the aqueous
vapour is then raised higher in the atmosphere, whence it has further to
fall, and there is warmer air below for it to fall through.]

[_Or sink in silver dews_. l. 18. During the coldness of the night the
moisture before dissolved in the air is gradually precipitated, and as
it subsides adheres to the bodies it falls upon. Where the attraction of
the body to the particles of water is greater than the attractions of
those particles to each other, it becomes spread upon their surface, or
slides down them in actual contact; as on the broad parts of the blades
of moist grass: where the attraction of the surface to the water is less
than the attraction of the particles of water to each other, the dew
stands in drops; as on the points and edges of grass or gorse, where the
surface presented to the drop being small it attracts it so little as
but just to support it without much changing its globular form: where
there is no attraction between the vegetable surface and the dew drops,
as on cabbage leaves, the drop does not come into contact with the leaf,
but hangs over it repelled, and retains it natural form, composed of the
attraction and pressure of its own parts, and thence looks like
quicksilver, reflecting light from both its surfaces. Nor is this owing
to any oiliness of the leaf, but simply to the polish of its surface, as
a light needle may be laid on water in the same manner without touching
it; for as the attractive powers of polished surfaces are greater when