of Selborne 239 



moisture sufficient to let the light through, and render the 

 atmosphere transparent ; because he had observed several 

 bodies more diaphanous when wet than dry; and did 

 never recollect that the air had that look in rainy seasons. 



My friend who lives just beyond the top of the down, 

 brought his three swivel guns to try them in my outlet, 

 with their muzzles towards the Hanger, supposing that the 

 report would have had a great effect ; but the experiment 

 did not answer his expectation. He then removed them 

 to the Alcove on the Hanger : when the sound, rushing 

 along the Lythe and Combwood, was very grand : but it 

 was at the Hermitage that the echoes and repercussions 

 delighted the hearers ; not only filling the Lythe with 

 the roar, as if all the beeches were tearing up by the 

 roots ; but, turning to the left, they pervaded the vale 

 above Combwood-ponds ; and after a pause seemed to 

 take up the crash again, and to extend round Harteley- 

 hangers, and to die away at last among the coppices and 

 coverts of Ward le ham. It has been remarked before 

 that this district is an Anathoth, a place of responses or 

 echoes, and therefore proper for such experiments : we 

 may further add that the pauses in echoes, when they 

 cease and yet are taken up again, like the pauses in music, 

 surprise the hearers, and have a fine effect on the 

 imagination. 



The gentleman above mentioned has just fixed a 

 barometer in his parlour at Newton Valence. The tube 

 was first filled here (at Selborne) twice with care, when 

 the mercury agreed and stood exactly with my own ; but 

 being filled again twice at Newton, the mercury stood, on 

 account of the great elevation of that house, three-tenths 

 of an inch lower than the barometers at this village, and 

 so continues to do, be the weight of the atmosphere what 

 it may. The plate of the barometer at Newton is figured 

 as low as 27; because in stormy weather the mercury 

 there will sometimes descend below 28. We have 

 supposed Newton-house to stand two hundred feet higher 

 than this house : but if the rule holds good, which says 

 that mercury in a barometer sinks one-tenth of an inch 

 for every hundred feet elevation, then the Newton 



