METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 435 



MORNING CLOUDS. 



After a bright night and vast dew, the sky usually becomes 

 cloudy by eleven or twelve o'clock in the forenoon, and clear 

 again towards the decline of the day. The reason seems to be, 

 that the dew, drawn up by evaporation, occasions the clouds ; 

 which, towards evening, being no longer rendered buoyant by the 

 warmth of the sun, melt away, and fall down again in dews. If 

 clouds are watched in a still warm evejaing, they will be seen to 

 melt away and disappear. WHITE. 



DRIPPING WEATHER AFTER DROUGHT. 



No one that has not attended to such matters, and taken down 

 remarks, can be aware how much ten days' dripping weather will 

 influence the growth of grass or corn after a severe dry season. 

 This present summer, 1776, yielded a remarkable instance : for till 

 the 3oth May the fields were burnt up and naked, and the barley 

 not half out of the ground; but now, June loth, there is an agreeable 

 prospect of plenty. WHITE. 



AURORA BOREALIS. 



November ist, 1787. The N. aurora made a particular appear- 

 ance, forming itself into a broad, red, fiery belt, which extended 

 from E. to W. across the welkin : but the moon rising at about 

 ten o'clock, in unclouded majesty, in the E., put an end to this 

 grand, but awful meteorous phenomenon. WHITE. 



BLACK SPRING, 1771. 



Dr. Johnson says, that "in 1771 the season was so severe in 

 the island of Sky, 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." 



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