Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/303

Rh by Martin and one by Dollond, which soon began to show us what we were to expect; for by ten o'clock they fell to 21°, and at eleven to 4°, when we went to bed. On the 10th, in the morning, the quicksilver of Dollond's glass was down to half a degree below zero; and that of Martin's, which was absurdly graduated only to four degrees above zero, sunk quite into the brass guard of the ball; so that when the weather became most interesting this was useless. On the 10th, at eleven at night, though the air was perfectly still, Dollond's glass went down to one degree below zero! This strange severity of the weather made me very desirous to know what degree of cold there might be in such an exalted and near situation as Newton. We had, therefore, on the morning of the 10th, written to Mr., and intreated him to hang out his thermometer, made by Adams, and to pay some attention to it morning and evening, expecting wonderful phenomena, in so elevated a region, at two hundred feet or more above my house. But, behold! on the 10th, at eleven at night, it was down only to 17°, and the next morning at 22°, when mine was at 10°! We were so disturbed at this unexpected reverse of comparative local cold, that we sent one of my glasses up, thinking that of Mr. must, somehow, be wrongly constructed. But, when the instruments came to be confronted, they went exactly together; so that, for one night at least, the cold at Newton was 18° less than at Selborne; and, through the whole frost, 10° or 12°; and indeed, when we came to observe consequences, we could readily credit this; for all my laurustines, bays, ilexes, arbutuses, cypresses, and even my Portugal laurels, and (which occasions more regret) my fine sloping laurel-hedge, were scorched up; while, at Newton, the same trees have not lost a leaf.

We had steady frost on the 25th, when the thermometer in the morning was down to 10° with us, and at Newton only to 21°. Strong frost continued till the 31st, when some tendency to thaw was observed; and, by January 3rd, 1785, the thaw was confirmed, and some rain fell.

A circumstance that I must not omit, because it was new to us, is, that on Friday, December 10th, being bright sunshine, the air was full of icy spiculæ, floating in all directions, like atoms in a