IN connection with the very interesting letter of the Rev. Clement Ley (on p. 150), descriptive of the barometric depression which passed over these isles towards the end of last month, the following extract from a letter of mine published in the local press, with a view of obtaining further information, but without success, may be of interest. At the time when the centre of the depression lay over the mouth of the Thames, as mentioned by Mr. Ley, this neighbourhood was being visited by a thunder-storm of great severity and lengthy duration, and at 6 p.m. the rain gave place to hail, and “In the short space of twenty minutes the ground and roofs of houses were covered with a compact layer of frozen rain-drops, which at the end of half an hour (6.30p.m.), when the storm had abated and given place again to rain, I found to have an average depth of 0.75 inch, though the stones were then reduced to about half their original size. …But few of the hailstones, which were nearly all ovarious in form, were smaller than 0.375 by 0.250 inch, and three which I picked up at random at 6.10 p.m. when the storm was at its height, measured respectively 0.065 by 0.051 inch, 0.437 by 0.562 inch, and a spherical one had a diameter of 0.5 inch.” Such large hailstones are, I believe, rarely met with in storms near London. This one seems to have been confined to a comparatively small area, the hail falling in its greatest severity at Leyton, and not extending much beyond Walthamstow, Stratford, West Ham, and here.