OF SELBORNE. 331 
above mentioned; and, besides, our mountains 
cause currents of air and breezes, and the vast 
effluvia from our woodlands temper and moderate 
our heats. 
LETTER LXI. 
Tue summer of the year 1783 was an amazing 
and portentous one, and full of horrible phenom- 
ena; for, besides the alarming meteors and tre. 
mendous thunder-storms that affrighted and dis- 
tressed the different counties of this kingdom, the 
peculiar haze or smoky fog that prevailed for many 
weeks in this island, and in every part of Europe, 
and even beyond its limits, was a most extraordi- 
nary appearance, unlike anything known within the 
memory of man. By my journal I find that I had 
noticed this strange occurrence from June 23 to 
July 20 inclusive, during which period the wind 
varied to every quarter, without making any alter- 
ation in the air. The sun at noon looked as blank 
as a clouded moon, and shed a rust-coloured, fer. 
ruginous light on the ground and floors of rooms, 
but was particularly lurid and blood-coloured at 
rising and setting. All the time the heat was so 
intense that butchers’ meat could hardly be eaten 
the day after it was killed, and the flies swarmed so 
in the lanes and hedges that they rendered the 
horses half frantic, and riding irksome. The coun- 
try people began to look with a superstitious awe 
at the red, lowering aspect of the sun; and, indeed, 
there was reason for the most enlightened person 
