A CURIOUS THERMOMETER. 285 



thousand accidents may occasion the loss of the 

 thermometer that has been bought, and a mo- 

 ment's absence of mind is enough to cause so 

 tender an instrument to be broken. I have, there- 

 fore, endeavoured to procure for the country people 

 a thermometer that shall not have the air of a 

 philosophical instrument, that may not surprise 

 them by an appearance of something above their 

 understandings, which they may make themselves, 

 and which shall cost them nothing, or at the 

 utmost, not more than a bit of butter not bigger 

 than a nut and half as much tallow would cost 

 them ! Let them melt and mix together these 

 two ingredients, and pour them into a common 

 drinking glass (and that may as well be without 

 a foot as with one), and this shall be their ther- 

 mometer. If they can procure any of those small 

 bottles that are usually filled with sugar-plums, 

 and sold at fairs to children for a halfpenny, or 

 a penny at most, bottle and all, they may make a 

 still more convenient thermometer. After having 

 taken the sugar-plums out of one of them, it must 

 be filled only in part with the mixture of butter 

 and tallow just mentioned ; and this instrument, 

 coarse as it is, will teach them whether the chicken- 



