CHAPTEE LIII. 



Heat in Mid-August Early Planting and Sowing Over-ripening of Crops Medusas 

 Stinging Jelly-Fish The amount of solid matter in Jelly-Fish. 



THE unprecedented heat of mid- August lasted with us here precisely 

 a fortnight [September 1876]. Beginning on the 10th, it continued 

 with little intermission or mitigation till the 24th, when the wind 

 suddenly chopped round to the south-west, our rainy quarter ; the 

 sky assumed the threatening aspect, an ugly interminglement of 

 black and dark grey, with which we are only too familiar, and rain 

 began to fall with that dour, persistent pattering, and aimless 

 horizontal drift, which sufficed to convince the most careless and 

 unobservant student of our West Highlands meteorology that it 

 was neither a thunder-plump nor a mere passing shower, but a 

 determined and regular " set-in " of probably some days, or, it 

 might be, of some weeks' duration. The last ten days have 

 accordingly been more or less wet, and as the corn over the 

 country generally is about ripe for scythe and sickle, many an 

 anxious eye is cast heavenwards with wistfullest glance, morning, 

 noon, and night, in hopes of a change of wind and a return to fair 

 weather. We are about tired of advocating the advantages of early 

 sowing to our friends of the West Highlands. We are content 

 with once again stating the fact that, having sown early, our own 

 corn was cut in ripe and good condition on the 17th August, and 

 safely housed without having once been touched by a single drop 

 of rain. A single armful of such well-preserved provender is 

 worth a whole back-burden of the washed-out and sapless stuff 



