314 NATURAL HISTORY 
remarks that frequent small rains keep the air 
moist, while heavy ones render it more dry, by 
beating down the vapours. He is also of opinion 
that the dingy, smoky appearance in the sky, in 
very dry seasons, arises from the want of moisture 
sufficient to let the light through and render the 
atmosphere transparent, because he had observed 
several bodies more diaphanous when wet than dry, 
and did never recollect that the air had that look in _ 
rainy seasons. 
My friend, who lives just beyond the top of the 
down, brought his three swivel guns to try them in 
my outlet, with their muzzles towards the Hanger, 
supposing that the report would have had a great 
effect ; but the experiment did not answer his ex- 
pectation. He then removed them to the Alcove 
on the Hanger; when the sound, rushing along the 
Lythe and Comb Wood, was very grand ; but it 
was at the Hermitage that the echoes and the re- 
percussions delighted the hearers, not only filling 
the Lythe with the roar, as if all the beeches were 
tearing up by the roots, but, turning to the left, they 
pervaded the vale above Comb Wood ponds, and, 
after a pause, seemed to take up the crash again, 
and to extend round Harteley Hanger, and to die 
away at last among the coppices and coverts of 
Ward-le-ham. It has been remarked before that | 
this district is an Anathoth, 2 place of responses or 
echoes, and therefore proper for such experiments ; 
we may farther add, that the pauses in echoes, 
when they cease and yet are taken up again, like 
the pauses in music, surprise the hearers, and have 
a fine effect on the imagination. 
The gentleman above mentioned has just fixed a 
