Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15437

    Hail

    Date
    28 March 1667
    Creator
    Christopher Wren (1632 - 1723, British) , Architect
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p1
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 215mm
    width (page): 182mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > weather
    Description
    Two shapes of hail at the bottom (faint), and three shapes of hail in ink at the top. The hail fell at 4 pm on 26 March (according to this paper, and 27 according to the minutes). This is probably the original drawing produced at the meeting on 28 March 1667. Wren described the hail as a 'perfect cone' (see the top two figures in ink), and the underside (third ink figure) the shape of a 'marigold flower'.

    These images are copied in RBO/3/184 and RBC/2/313.
    Transcription
    Shapes of Haile that fell
    March 26 h 4 p. M 1667
    produced by Dr Chr. Wren
    before the Society March 28 1667
    Transcribed by the Making Visible project
    Object history
    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 28 March 1667, ‘Dr. Wren produced drawings of the figures of hail, which had fallen March 27, 1667, at four in the afternoon, the upper part of which was a perfect cone, the under part the frustrum of a cone. Being turned up, it presented a marigold flower. The angle, he said, was the angle of a pentagon; so that five of them joined together made a circle. These drawings were ordered to be registered’ (Birch 2:162).
    Related fellows
    Christopher Wren (1632 - 1723, British) , Architect
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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