THE NEW SCIENCE OF METEOROLOGY 



collected information worthy of being published ; but, 

 fortunately, while preparing an account of it I met by 

 accident with a small posthumous work by Mr. Six, 

 printed at Canterbury in 1794, in which are related 

 differences observed on dewy nights between ther- 

 mometers placed upon grass and others in the air that 

 are much greater than those mentioned in the paper 

 presented by him to the Royal Society in 1 788. In this 

 work, too, the cold of the grass is attributed, in agree- 

 ment with the opinion of Mr. Wilson, altogether to the 

 dew deposited upon it. The value of my own observa- 

 tions appearing to me now much diminished, though 

 they embraced many points left untouched by Mr. Six, 

 I gave up my intentions of making them known. Short- 

 ly after, however, upon considering the subject more 

 closely, I began to suspect that Mr. Wilson, Mr. Six, 

 and myself had all committed an error regarding the 

 cold which accompanies dew as an effect of the forma- 

 tion of that fluid. I therefore resumed my experi- 

 ments, and having by means of them, I think, not only 

 established the justness of my suspicions, but ascer- 

 tained the real cause both of dew and of several other 

 natural appearances which have hitherto received no 

 sufficient explanation, I venture now to submit to the 

 consideration of the learned an account of some of 

 my labors, without regard to the order of time in 

 which they were performed, and of various conclusions 

 which may be drawn from them, mixed with facts and 

 opinions already published by others : 



"There are various occurrences in nature which 

 seem to me strictly allied to dew, though their relation 

 to it be not always at first sight perceivable. The 



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