NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 233 



The first week in December was very wet, with the barom- 

 eter very low. On the 7th, with the barometer at 28.5, 

 came on a vast snow, which continued all that day and the 

 next, and most part of the following night; so that by the 

 morning of the Qth the works of men were quite overwhelmed, 

 the lanes filled so as to be impassable, and the ground covered 

 twelve or fifteen inches without any drifting. In the evening 

 of the Qth the air began to be so very sharp that we thought 

 it would be curious to attend to the motions of a thermometer ; 

 we therefore hung out two, one made 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 gradu- 

 ated only to four degrees above zero, sank 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 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 loth, 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 elevated 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 ! 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 instruments came to be confronted, they went exactly to- 

 gether ; so that, for one night at least, the cold at Newton was 

 1 8 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 laurestines, bays, 

 ilexes, arbutuses, cypresses, and even my Portugal laurels, and 

 (which occasions more regret) my fine sloping laurel-hedge, 



