Excerpt:
METEOROLOGICAL IMAGINATIONS and CONJECTURES. By BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, LL.D F. R. S. and acad. reg. Scient. Paris. Soc. etc. Communicated by Dr. PERCIVAL. Read December 22, I784.,
T H E R E seems to be a region higher in the air over all countries, wbere it is always winter, where frost exitfls continua1ly, fince, in the midf of fummer on the furface of the earth, ice falls often from above in the form of hail. Haiftones, of the great weight we fometimes find them, did not probably acquire their mag nitude before they began to dercend. The air, being eight hundred times rarer tnan water, is unable to fupport it but in the fhape of vapour a ftate in which its particles are feparated. As foon as they are condenfed by the cold of the upper region, fo as to form a drop, that drop begins to fa11. If it freezes into a grain