374 ATMOSPHERIC EFFECTS 



little deserving of narration, but it has been done 

 from two motives : we village historians meet with 

 but few important events to detail from the annals 

 of our district ; we have no gazettes, few public 

 records, or official documents to embellish our 

 pages, and if we will write, must be content with 

 such small matters as present themselves ; and to 

 point out how frequently very mysterious circum- 

 stances may be elucidated, and appear as consistent 

 events by an unbiassed examination. We may 

 not be able always satisfactorily to see why a tide 

 of good fortune should flow at the desire of one, 

 and ebb from the wishes of another; yet many 

 of the occurrences of human life are, perhaps, not 

 so extraordinary as they are made to appear by 

 the suppression of facts, or our ignorance of cir- 

 cumstances. 



The effects of atmospheric changes upon vege- 

 tation have been noticed in the rudest ages : even 

 the simplest people have remarked their influence 

 on the appetites of their cattle, so that to "eat 

 like a rabbit before rain " has become proverbial, 

 from the common observance of the fact : but the 

 influence of the electric fluid upon the common 

 herbage has not been, perhaps, so generally per- 

 ceived. My men complain to-day that they cannot 

 mow, that they " cannot any how make a hand 

 of it," as the grass hangs about the blade of the 

 scythe, and is become tough and woolly ; heavy 

 rains are falling to the southward, and thunder 

 rolls around us ; this indicates the electric state of 



