OF THE HEAVENS AND THE AIR. 3 



At the fame place, ipth March, 1763, half an hour pafl 8 o'clock 

 at night, we were entertained with the fight of a Lunar Iris ; the 

 extremities of the arch eaft and fouth, the moon to the fouth- 

 weft, affording a good light, but few ftars appearing. At 9 

 o'clock it vanifhed, when innumerable -flars arofe in view, and en- 

 lightened the horizon. We had boifterous winds, froft and fnow, 

 for feveral days after it j the night of the 21 ft dreadfully tcmpef- 

 tuous, and that of the 24th and the two days following remark- 

 ably fevere by a fall of fnow, and a keen froft. 



There is no better proof of the falubrity of the air with us, 

 than the long life of the inhabitants; fome living to eighty, 

 fome ninety, and fome an hundred years. The lafl. vicar but one 

 of Hartburn, the Revd. Mr. Laton Eden, brother to Sir John Eden t 

 Bart, was 51 years vicar of that parifli, and lived to the age of go. 

 He was interred within the rails of the chancel of his own church, 

 tinder a flatflone, Dec. 6th, 1735. A clergyman, now living, has 

 been incumbent of a parifh forty-eight years, after the poffeflion 

 of another above eight, and had a curacy and a college-fellow- 

 fhip before that, is healthy and agil, and capable of going thro' 

 all the duties of his function, or the cares and fatigues of life, 

 with the youngefl man *. Ann Tel/ford, a poor woman of Haughton, 

 near Humjhaugh, could fee to thread a needle at the age of 103, and 

 died at 105, in December, 1759. In the village of Wark upon 

 North Tyne, I have fometimes afked the age of a man and his wife, 

 and the reply made by each of them has been, " above fourfcore, 

 " Sir!" A cafe not unfrequent among the common people in that 

 village and neighbourhood ; which is attributed to the frigidity 

 and purity of the air, whereby their folids are braced, and perfpi- 



* See an extraordinary account of the age of a clergyman, near .4lnw!ck t in Fuller's Wor- 

 thies, in a letter to that author from Thomas Atkln^ Efq; fon to a chief magiftrate of the city 

 ef London^ p. 308-9. 



B 3 ration 



