NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 277 



and intreated him to hang out his thermometer, made by Adams, 

 and to pay some attention to it morning and evening, expecting 

 wonderful phenomena, 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 icr! We were so disturbed at this unexpected reverse 

 of comparative local cold, that we sent one of my glasses up, think- 

 ing that of Mr. must, somehow, be wrongly constructed. But, 



when the instruments came to be confronted, they went exactly 

 together ; so that for one night at least, the cold at Newton was 

 18 less than at Selborne ; and, through the whole frost- 10 or 12, 

 and indeed, when we came to observe consequences, we could 

 readily credit this ; for all my laurustines, bays, ilexes, arbutuses 

 cypresses, and even my Portugal laurels,* and (which occasions 

 more regret) my fine sloping laurel-hedge, were scorched up ; while 

 at Newton, the same trees have not lost a leaf ! 



We had steady frost on to the 25th, when the thermometer in the 

 morning was down to 10 with us, and at Newton only to 21. 

 Strong frost continued till the 3ist, when some tendency to thaw 

 was observed; and, by January the 3rd, 1785, the thaw was con- 

 firmed, and some rain fell. 



A circumstance that I must not omit, because it was new to us, 

 is, that on Friday, December the loth, being bright sunshine, the 

 air was full of icy spiculce, floating in all direction, like at oms in a 

 sunbeam let into a dark room. We thought them at first particles 

 of the rime falling from my tall hedges ; but were soon convinced 

 to the contrary, by making our observations in open places where 

 no rime could reach us. Were they watery particles of the air 

 frozen as they floated, or were they evaporations from the snow 

 frozen as they mounted ? 



We were much obliged to the thermometers for the early infor- 

 mation they gave us ; and hurried our apples, pears, onions, potatoes, 

 &c., into the cellar, and warm closets ; while those who had not, 

 or neglected such warnings, lost all their store of roots and fruits, 

 and had their very bread and cheese frozen. 



I must not omit to tell you that, during these two Siberian days, 

 my parlour cat was so electric, that had a person stroked her, and 



* Mr. Miller, in his "Gardener's Dictionary," says positively that the Portugal laurels 

 remained untouched in the remarkable frost of 1739-40. So that either that accurate 

 observer was much mistaken, or else the frost of December 1784 was much more severe 

 and destructive than that in the year above-mentioned. 



