WEATHER. 321 



meadows and gardens are drawn up in the day 

 by a brisk evaporation, and then in the night fall 

 down again with the dews in which they are 

 entangled ; that the air is strongly scented, and 

 therefore impregnated with the particles of flowers 

 in summer weather, our senses will inform us ; and 

 that this clammy sweet substance is of the vege- 

 table kind we may learn from bees, to whom it 

 is very grateful ; and we may be assured that it 

 falls in the night, because it is always first seen in 

 warm still mornings. 



On chalky and sandy soils, and in the hot 

 villages about London, the thermometer has been 

 often observed to mount as high as 83 or 84 ; but 

 with us, in this hilly and woody district, I have 

 hardly ever seen it exceed 80, nor does it often 

 arrive at that pitch. The reason, I conclude, is, 

 that our dense clayey soil, so much shaded by 

 trees, is not so easily heated through as those 

 above-mentioned ; and, besides, our mountains 

 cause currents of air and breezes, and the vast 

 effluvia from our woodlands tempers and moderates 

 our heats. 



LXV. 



THE summer of the year 1783 was an amazing 

 and portentous one, and full of horrible phenomena; 

 for, besides the alarming meteors and tremen- 

 dous thunder-storms that affrighted and distressed 

 the different counties of this kingdom, the peculiar 

 haze, or smoky fog, that prevailed for many weeks 

 in this island, and in every part of Europe, and 

 even beyond its limits, was a most extraordinary 

 appearance, unlike any thing known within the 

 memory of man. By my journal I find that I had 



