304 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 



London. It has a strong smell, and is supposed to occasion blights. 

 When such mists appear they are usually followed by dry weather. 

 WHITE. 



REFLECTION OF FOG. 



When people walk in a deep white fog by night with a lanthorn, if 

 they will turn their backs to the light, they will see their shades im- 

 pressed on the fog in rude gigantic proportions. This phenomenon 

 seems not to have been attended to, but implies the great density of the 

 meteor at that juncture. WHITE. 



HONEY DEW.* 



June 4, 1783. Fast honey dews this week. The reason of these seem 

 to be, that in hot days the effluvia of flowers are drawn up by a brisk 

 evaporation, and then in the night fall down with the dews with which 

 they are entangled. 



This clammy substance is very grateful to bees, who gather it with 

 great assiduity, but it is injurious to the trees on which it happens 

 to fall, by stopping the pores of the leaves. The greatest quantity falls 

 in still close weather ; because winds disperse it, and copious dews 

 dilute it, and prevent its ill effects. It falls mostly in hazy warm 

 weather. WHITE. 



MORNING CLOUDS. 



After a bright night and vast dew, the sky usually becomes cloudy 

 by eleven or twelve o'clock in the forenoon, and clear again towards 

 the decline of the day. The reason seems to be, that the dew, drawn 

 up by evaporation, occasions the clouds ; which, towards evening, being 

 no longer rendered buoyant by the warmth of the sun, melt away, and 

 fall down again in dews. If clouds are watched 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 of May the fields were burnt up and naked, and the barley not half 

 out of the ground ; but now, June 10, there is an agreeable prospect of 

 plenty. WHITE. 



* Honey-dew is now ascertained to be the excrement of various species of 

 aphides, and would be extremely injurious to the tree or plant, were it always so 

 prevalent as in some very warm seasons. This may be observed whenever these 

 insects have been allowed to become too abundant in the green-house, or other 

 plant-structures. The substance acts as a varnish, shutting up the pores of the 

 leaves or stem. It is extremely sweet to the taste, and therefore attracts flies, and, 

 where it is exceedingly abundant, also bees, which we rather think employ it as 

 they would sugar. 



