374 WHITE 



week. The reason of these seems to be that in hot days the 

 effluvia of flowers are drawn up by a brisk evaporation, and 

 then in the night fall down with the dews with which they 

 are entangled. 



This clammy substance is very grateful to bees, who gather 

 it with great assiduity, but it is injurious to the trees on which 

 it happens to fall, by stopping the pores of the leaves. The 

 greatest quantity falls in still close weather ; because winds 

 disperse it, and copious dews dilute it, and prevent its ill effects. 

 It falls mostly in hazy warm weather. WHITE. 



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 evening, 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, 1 776, yielded a remarkable instance : for till 

 the 30th 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 north au- 

 rora 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 remem- 

 bered by the name of the 'black spring.' The snow, which 

 seldom lies at all, covered the ground for eight weeks, many 



