ATMOSPHERIC EXPERIMENTS. 421 



vegetables be more influenced than those of a drier 

 nature ; but it served at the time to indicate the 

 portion of moisture that was escaping from a given 

 horizontal surface. From the invisible and insen- 

 sible nature of evaporation, its influences are not 

 always considered ; but such an action on the sur- 

 faces of things as that related above, must put into 

 operation all the inherent powers of matter suscep- 

 tible of impulse, and probably would produce 

 effects which we might suppose to be accomplished 

 by the agency of other means. 



Nov. 10. Many effusions of the mind have 

 been produced by the approach or existence of the 

 seasons of our year, which seem naturally to actuate 

 our bodily or mental feelings through the agency 

 of the eye, or temperature of the air. The peculiar 

 silence that prevails in autumn, like the repose of 

 wearied nature, seems to mark the decline and ter- 

 mination of being in many things that animated our 

 summer months : the singing of the bird is rare, 

 feeble, and melancholy ; the hum of the insect is 

 not heard ; the breeze passes by us like a sigh from 

 nature, we hear it, and it is gone for ever. But it 

 is the vegetable tribes, which at this season most 

 particularly influence our feeling, and excite our 

 attention. We see the fruits of the earth stored 

 up for our use in that dull season u in which there 

 will be neither earing nor harvest/' the termination 

 and reward of the labours of man. But this day, 

 November !()_, presented such a scene of life and 



