VEGETABLES. 489 



for the turf of my garden-walks, brought from the down 

 above, abounds with those appearances, which vary 

 their shape, and shift situation continually, discovering 

 themselves now in circles, now in segments, and some- 

 times in irregular patches and spots. Wherever they 

 obtain, puffballs abound ; the seeds of which were 

 doubtless brought in the turf. 



METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 



BAROMETER. 



NOVEMBER 22, 1768. A remarkable fall of the ba- 

 rometer all over the kingdom. At Selborne we had no 

 wind, and not much rain ; only vast, swagging, rocklike 

 clouds appeared at a distance. 



PARTIAL FROST. 



THE country people, who are abroad in winter mornings 

 long before sunrise, talk much of hard frost in some 

 spots, and none in others. The reason of these partial 

 frosts is obvious, for there are at such times partial 

 fogs about ; where the fog obtains, little or no frost 

 appears : but where the air is clear, there it freezes 

 hard. So the frost takes place either on hill or in dale, 

 wherever the air happens to be clearest and freest from 

 vapour. 



been but a little while before, after a great storm of thunder and light- 

 ning which seemed by the noise and flashes to have been very near him, 

 observed a circle of about four or five yards diameter, the border of it 

 about a foot broad, newly burnt bare, as the colour and bitterness of the 

 grass roots plainly testified. He knew not what to ascribe it to but the 

 lightning. After the grass was mowed, the next year it came up more 

 fresh and green in the place burnt than in the middle, and at mowing 

 time was much taller and ranker. E, T. B. 



