330 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 



the thirtieth of May, the fields were burnt up and naked, and 

 the barley not half out of the ground ; but now, June the tenth, 

 there is an agreeable prospect of plenty. * 



AURORA BOREALIS. November 1, 1787. The north aurora 

 made a particular appearance, forming itself into a broad, red, 

 fiery belt, which extended from east to west across the welkin ; 

 but the moon rising at about ten o'clock, in unclouded majesty, 

 in the east, put an end to this grand, but awful meteorous 

 phenomenon, f 



BLACK SPRING, 1771. Dr Johnson says, that, " in 1771, 

 the season was so severe in the Island of Skye, that it is 

 remembered by the name of the black spring. The snow, 

 which seldom lies at all, covered the ground for eight weeks ; 

 many cattle died, and those that survived were so emaciated, 

 that they did not require the male at the usual season." The 

 case was just the same with us here in the south ; never was 

 so many barren cows known as in the spring following that 

 dreadful period. Whole dairies missed being in calf together. 



At the end of March, the face of the earth was naked to a 

 surprising degree : wheat hardly to be seen, and no signs of 

 any grass ; turnips all gone, and sheep in a starving way ; all 

 provisions rising in price. Farmers cannot sow for want of 

 rain. 



.. * The annual average quantity of dew deposited in this country is 

 estimated at a depth of about five inches, being about one-seventh of the 

 mean quantity of moisture supposed to be received from the atmosphere, 

 over all Great Britain, during the year; or about 22,161,337,355 tons, 

 taking the ton at two hundred and fifty-two imperial gallons. ED. 



f At what time this meteor was first observed, is not known ; none are 

 recorded in the English annals till the remarkahle one, which happened 

 on the 3()th January, 1560 ; another very brilliant one appeared in 1760. 

 M. Libos attributes the aurora to the decomposition of the two air* 

 which compose the atmosphere, oxygen and nitrogen, in the polar regions, 

 by an accumulation of the electric fluid there. This explanation is sup- 

 ported by a very accurate attention to the chemical phenomena produced 

 on the atmosphere by electricity, which decomposes it, and forms nitrous 

 gas. ED. 



