358 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 



CLOUDS. After a bright night and vast dews, 

 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 evening, they will be seen to melt 

 away and disappear. WHITE. 



DRIPPING WEATHER AITER 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 30th of May, the fields were burnt up and naked, and 

 the barley not half out of the grottnd ; but now, June 10, 

 there is an agreeable prospect of plenty. WHITE. 



AURORA BOREALIS. November 1, 1787. The north 

 aurora made a particular appearance, forming itself into a 

 broad, red, fiery belt, which extended from east to west 

 across the welkin : but the moon rising at about ten o'clock, 

 in unclouded majesty, in the east, 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 Skye, that it is 

 remembered by the name of the HacTc 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 

 surprising degree : wheat hardly to be seen, and no signs of 

 any grass ; turnips all gone, and sheep in a starving way ; all 

 provisions rising in price. Farmers cannot sow for want of 

 rain. WHITE. 



