248 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



The first week in December was very wet, with the 

 barometer very low. On the yth, with the barometer at 

 28 five tenths, came on a vast snow, which continued all 

 that day and the next, and most part of the following 

 night ; so that by the morning of the 9th the works of 

 men were quite overwhelmed, the lanes filled so as to be 

 impassable, and the ground covered twelve or fifteen inches 

 without any drifting. In the evening of the 9th the air 

 began to be so very sharp that we thought it would be 

 curious to attend to the motions of a thermometer : we 

 therefore hung out two ; one made by Martin and one by 

 Dolland, which soon began to show us what we were to 

 expect ; for, by ten o'clock, they fell to 2 1 , and at eleven 

 to 4, when we went to bed. On the loth, in the morning, 

 the quicksilver of Dolland's glass was down to half a 

 degree below zero ; and that of Martin's, which was 

 absurdly graduated only to four degrees above zero, sunk 

 quite into the brass guard of the ball ; so that when the 

 weather became most interesting this was useless. On the 

 loth, at eleven at night, though the air was perfectly still, 

 Dolland's glass went down to one degree below zero! 

 This strange severity of the weather made me very desirous 

 to know what degree of cold there might be in such an 

 exalted and near situation as Newton. We had therefore, 



on the morning of the loth, written to Mr. , and 



entreated him to hang out his thermometer, made by 

 Adams ; and to pay some attention to it morning and 

 evening ; expecting wonderful phaenomena, in so elevated a 

 region, at two hundred feet or more above my house. 

 But, behold ! on the loth, at eleven at night, it was down 

 only to 17, and the next morning at 22, when mine was 

 at ten. We were so disturbed at this unexpected reverse 

 of comparative local cold, that we sent one of my glasses 



up, thinking that of Mr. must, some how, be wrongly 



constructed. But, when the instruments came to be con- 

 fronted, they went exactly together : so that, for one night 

 at least, the cold at Newton was 1 8 degrees less than at 

 Selborne ; and, through the whole frost, I o or 12 degrees ; 

 and indeed, when we came to observe consequences, we 



