AIR : WINDS, MISTS. 15 



this hill one may discerne Our Lady Church Steeple at Sarum, like a fine Spanish needle. I would 

 have the height of these hills, as also Hackpen, and those toward Lambourn, which are the highest, 

 to be taken with the quicksilver barometer, according to the method of Mr. Edmund Halley in 

 Philosophical Transactions, No. 181. 



Now, although Mindip-hills and Whitesheet, &c., are as a barr and skreen to keep off from 

 Wiltshire the westerly winds and raines, as they doe in some measure repel those noxious vapours, 

 yet wee have a flavour of them ; and when autumnal agues raigne, they are more common on the 

 hills than in the vales of this country. 



The downes of Wiltshire are covered with mists, when the vales are clear from them, and 

 the sky serene ; and they are much more often here than in the lowest story or stage. 



The leather covers of bookes, &c. doe mold more and sooner in the hill countrey than in the vale. 

 The covers of my bookes in my closet at Clialke would be all over covered with a hoare mouldinesse, 

 that I could not know of what colour the leather was ; when my bookes in my closet at Easton- 

 Piers (in the vale) were not toucht at all with any mouldiness. 



So the roomes at Winterslow, which is seated exceeding high, are very mouldie and dampish. 

 Mr. Lancelot Moorehouse, Rector of Pertwood, who was a very learned man, say'd that mists were 

 very frequent there : it stands verv high, iieer Hindon, which one would thinke to stand very 

 healthy : there is no river nor marsh neer it, yet they doe not live long there. 



The wheat hereabout, sc. towards the edge of the downes, is much subject to be smutty, which 

 they endeavour to prevent by drawing a cart-rope over the come after the meldews fall. 



Besides that the hill countrey is elevated so high in the air, the soile doth consist of chalke and 

 mawme, which abounds with nitre, which craddles the air, and turns it into mists and water. 



On the east side of the south downe of the farme of Broad Chalke are pitts called the Mearn-* 

 Pitts, which, though on a high hill, whereon is a sea marke towards the Isle of Wight, yet they 

 have alwaies water in them. How they came to be made no man knowes ; perhaps the mortar 

 was digged there for the building of the church. 



Having spoken of mists it brings to my remembrance that in December, 1653, being at night in the 

 court at S r . Charles Snell's at Kington St. Michael in this country, there being a very thick mist, 

 we sawe our shadowes on the fogg as on a wall by the light of the lanternes, sc. about 30 or 40 

 foot distance or more. There were several gentlemen which sawe this ; particularly Mr. Stafford 

 Tyndale. I have been enformed since by some that goe a bird-batting in winter nights that the like 

 hath been seen : but rarely. [A similar appearance to that here mentioned by Aubrey is often 

 witnessed in mountainous countries, and in Germany has given rise to many supernatural and 

 romantic legends. The " spectre of the Brocken," occasionally seen among the Harz mountains in 

 Hanover, is described by Mr. Brayley in his account of Cumberland, in the Beauties of England 

 and Wales, to illustrate some analogous appearances, which greatly astonished the residents near 

 Souterfell, in that county, about a century ago. J. B.] 



The north part of this county is much influenc't by the river Severne, which flowes impetuously 



* Marne U an old French word for marie. 



