METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 365 



in a still warm evening, they will be seen to melt away and 

 disappear. — White. 



DRIPPING WEATHER AFTER DROUGHT. 



No one that has not attended to such matters, and taken 

 down remarks, can be aware how much ten days' dripping 

 weather will influence the growth of grass or corn after a 

 severe dry season. This present summer, 1776, yielded a 

 remarkable instance : for till the 30th May the fields were 

 burnt up and naked, and the barley not half out of the 

 ground; but now, June 10th, there is an agreeable prospect 

 of plenty. — White. 



AURORA BOREALIS. 



November 1st, 1787. The N. aurora made a particular 

 appearance, forming itself into a broad, red, fiery belt, 

 which extended from E. to W. across the welkin : but the 

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

 the E., put an end to this grand but awful meteorous 

 phenomenon. — White. 



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 were so 

 many barren cows known as in the spring following that 



