METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 493 



DRIPPING WEATHER AFTER DROUGHT. 



No one that has not attended to such matters, and 

 taken down remarks, can be aware how much ten days 

 dripping weather will influence the growth of grass or 

 corn after a severe dry season. This present summer, 

 1776, yielded a remarkable instance; for till the 30th 

 of May the fields were burnt up and naked, and the 

 barley not half out of the ground ; but now, June 10, 

 there is an agreeable prospect of plenty. 



AURORA BOREALIS. 



NOVEMBER 1, 1787. The Northern Aurora made a 

 particular appearance, forming itself into a broad, red, 

 fiery belt, which extended from E. to W. across the 

 welkin : but the moon rising at about ten o'clock, in 

 unclouded majesty in the E., put an end to this grand, 

 but awful meteorous phenomenon. 



been frequently tempted into a rather distant excursion by these beautiful 

 wane-clouds, till repeated experience taught me, as it did Solomon, that 

 " beauty is vain," and that they only 



" Lured to betray and dazzled to blind." 



PARNELL. 



During autumn, more particularly than at other seasons, I have 

 observed the whole sky covered with what may with propriety be 

 called a network of clouds (Cirro-cumulus, HOWARD), as if little tufts of 

 accumulated vapour had been carded through each other by opposite 

 winds, crossing and recrossing them over one another, like the osiers 

 interwoven into a transparent basket. The clouds, again, which frequently 

 bound this field of chequered vapour, are not spread out in tufts, but 

 rolled up in enormous volumes, as white as snow on the edges, but dark- 

 ening into ravines, and caverns, and overhanging precipices of endless 

 forms, which are varied every instant by the influence of electricity or of 

 the predominant winds. When the clouds assume these picturesque 

 forms about sunset, the aspect of the sky becomes very grand. The 

 magnificent netting in the area of the firmament transmits through its 

 interstices a multitude of luminous rays which tinge two sides of each 

 tuft of vapour with ruddy orange, and the other two sides with shining 

 gold in tints which no pencil can imitate, and no language describe. 

 RENNIE. 



