NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 281 



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 loth, 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 loth, at eleven at night, though the air was per- 

 fectly 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 loth, 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 ele- 

 vated a region, at two hundred feet or more above my house. 

 But, behold ! on the loth, at eleven at night, it was down only to 

 17, and the next morning at 22, when mine was at 10 I 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 instru- 

 ments 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 3ist, 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 roth, being bright sunshine, the air 

 was full of icy spiculce, floating in all directions, like atoms in a 



