366 The Natural History of Selborne 



down the vapours. He is also of opinion that the dingy, smoky 

 appearance in the sky, in very dry seasons, arises from the want of 

 moisture sufficient to let the light through, and render the 

 atmosphere transparent ; because he had observed several bodies 

 more diaphanous when wet than dry, and did never recollect that 

 the air had that look in rainy seasons. 



My friend, who lives just beyond the top of the down, brought 

 his three swivel guns to try them in my outlet, with their muzzles 

 towards the Hanger, supposing that the report would have had a 

 great effect ; but the experiment did not answer his expectation. 

 He then removed them to the alcove on the Hanger ; when the 

 sound, rushing along the Lythe and Comb-wood was very grand ; 

 but it was at the Hermitage that the echoes and repercussions 

 delighted the hearers ; not only rilling the Lythe with the roar, as if 

 all the beeches were tearing up by the roots ; but, turning to the left, 

 they pervaded the vale above Comb-wood ponds, and after a pause 

 seemed to take up the crash again, and to extend round Hartley 

 Hangers, and to die away at last among the coppices and coverts of 

 Ward-le-Ham. It has been remarked before that this district is an 

 Anathoth, a place of responses or echoes, and therefore proper for 

 such experiments : we may farther add that the pauses in echoes, 

 when they cease and yet are taken up again, like the pauses in music, 

 surprise the hearers, and have a fine effect on the imagination. 



The gentleman above-mentioned has just fixed a barometer 1 in his 

 parlour at Newton Valence. The tube was first filled here (at Sel- 

 borne) twice with care, when the mercury agreed and stood exactly 

 with my own ; but, being filled twice again at Newton, the mercury 

 stood, on account of the great elevation of that house, three-tenths 

 of an inch lower than the barometers at this village, and so continues 

 to do, be the weight of the atmosphere what it may. The plate of 

 the barometer at Newton is figured as low as 27; because in stormy 

 weather the mercury there will sometimes descend below 28. We 

 have supposed Newton House to stand two hundred feet higher than 



1 This barometer can still be seen at Newton Valence vicarage. The incum- 

 bent at this time and for many years after was the Rev. Edmund White, Gilbert 

 White's nephew. E. H. N. 



