134 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBORNE i784 



of Selborne vicarage.* We expect Sister Harry and Lucy 

 in a day or two : they are to stop at Alton the first night. 

 My niece comes here for change of air. Nephews Ben., 

 Edmund and Clement have had a sad wet journey to 

 Portsmouth, and the Isle of Wight, where they saw naught, 

 but a dirty inn ; not being able to stir out one step. They 

 had also squally weather, and were almost drowned with 

 rain in their passage out. Mr. Clement has caught a great 

 cold : the other young men have escaped better than could be 

 expected. I was in fear for nephew Ben., because of his 

 late Infirmities. Molly ! you don't tell us of the balloon, 

 and the ascension of Mr. Lunardi : did it not affect you, to 

 see a poor human creature entering upon so strange and 

 hazardous an exploit ? I wish the newspapers would learn 

 to talk with a little more precision about thermometers. In 

 the late accounts they represent Mr. L. and his apparatus 

 covered with ice at 35°, three degrees ahove the freezing 

 point. One paper says Mr. L. discharged some of his gas, 

 and then the atmosphere was very mild ; not understanding 

 that the descent into a lower region occasioned the mildness!! 



Your loving uncle, 



Gil. White. 



My ham came safe; but had a great escape: for in its 

 passage down the waggon was robbed of about £30 in value. 



To Mrs. Barker, Selborne, Octr. 19, 1784. 



Dear Sister, — From the fineness of the weather, and the 

 steadiness of the wind to the N.E. I began to be possessed 

 with a notion last Friday that we should see Mr. Blanchard 

 in his balloon the day following : and therefore I called on 

 many of my neighbours in the street, and told them my 

 suspicions. The next day proving also bright, and the wind 



* He took possession on September 26th, 1784, the Naturalist's Journal 

 records. 



