2G8 NATURAL HISTORY 



one by Dollond, which soon began to shew us what we were 

 to expect ; for, by ten o'clock, they fell to 2 1, and at eleven 

 to 4, when we went to bed. On the 10th, 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 gra- 

 duated 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 10th, at eleven at 

 night, though the air was perfectly 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 New- 

 ton. We had therefore, on the morning of the 10th, written 



to Mr. , and entreated 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 10th, at eleven at night, it was down only 

 to 17, and the next morning at 22, when mine was at ten. 

 We were so disturbed at this unexpected reverse of compara- 

 tive local cold, that we sent one of my glasses up, thinking 



that of Mr. must, some how, be wrongly constructed. 



But, when the instruments came to be confronted, they went 

 exactly together : so that, for one night at least, the cold at 

 Neivton was 18 degrees less than at Selborne ; and, through 

 the whole frost, 10 or 12 degress ; 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 f and (which occasions more regret) my 

 fine sipping laurel hedge, were scorched up ; while, at New- 

 ton, the same trees have not lost a leaf ! 



We had steady frost on to 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 31st, when some ten- 



h Mr. Miller, in his Gardener's Dictionary, says positively that the Por- 

 tugal laurels remained untouched in the remarkable frost of ] 739-40. So 

 that either that accurate observer was much mistaken, or else the frost of 

 December 1784 was much more severe and destructive than that in the 

 year above mentioned. 



