METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 429 
BLACK SPRING: 1790. 
Dr. Johnson says, that “in 1771 the season was so severe in the 
island of Skye, that it is remembered by the name of the ‘black 
spring.’ The snow, which seldom lies at all, covered the ground for 
eight weeks, many cattle died, and those that survived were so 
emaciated that they did not require the male at the usual season.” 
The case was just the same with us here in the south; never were 
so many barren cows known as in the spring following that dreadful 
period. Whole dairies missed being in calf together. 
At the end of March the face of the earth was naked to a sur- 
prising degree. Wheat hardly to be seen, and no signs of any 
grass ; turnips all gone, and sheep in a starving way. All pro- 
visions rising in price. Farmers cannot sow for want of rain.— 
WHITE. 
ON THE DARK, STILL, DRY, WARM WEATHER, 
OCCASIONALLY HAPPENING IN THE WINTER MONTHS. 
Tw’ imprison’d winds slumber within their caves 
Fast bound : the fickle vane, emblem of change, 
Wavers no more, long settling to a point. 
All nature nodding seems composed: thick stream‘ 
From land, from flood up-drawn, dimming the day 
‘« Like a dark ceiling stand :” slow thro’ the cir | 
Gossamer floats, or stretch’d from blade to blads 
The wavy net-work whitens all the field. 
Push’d by the weightier atmosphere, up springs 
The ponderous Mercury, from scale to scale 
. 
Mounting, amidst the ‘Yorricellian tube_* 
While high in air, and pois’d upon his wings 
Unseen, the soft, enamour’d wood-lark runs 
Thro’ all his maze of melody ;—the brake 
Loud with the black-bird’s bolder note resounds. 
Sooth’d by the genial warmth, the cawing rook 
Anticipates the spring, selects her mate, 
Haunts her tall nest-trees, and with sedulous care 
Repairs her wicker eyrie, tempest torn. 
The ploughman inly smiles to see upturn 
His mellow glebe, best pledge of future crop: 
With glee the gardener eyes his smoking beds: 
E’en pining sickness feels a short relief. 
® The Barometer. 
