Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1911 — Heart of the Hailstone. [ARTICLE]

Heart of the Hailstone.

If it were not for the countless trillions of dust particles that float, separately invisible, in the atmosphere, there could be no rain drops, snow crystals or hailstones. From a perfectly dustless atmosphere the moisture would descend In ceaseless rain without drops. The dust particles serve as nuclei about which the vapor gathers. The snow crystal is the most beautiful creation of the aerial moisture, and the hailstone is the most extraordinary. The heart of every hailstone is a tiny atom of dhst. Such an atom, with a little moisture condensed about it, is the germ from which may grow a hailstone capable of felling a man or smashing a window. But first it most be caught up by a current of air and carried to the level of the lofty cirrus clouds, live or six or even ten miles high. Then, continually growing by fresh acessions of moisture, it begins its long plunge to the earth, spinning through the clouds and flashing in the sun like a diamond bolt shot from a rainbow.