OF SELBOENE 229 



soon began to shew us what we were to expect ; for, by ten 

 o'clock, they fell to 21, and at eleven to 4, when we went to 

 bed. On the 10th, in the morning, the quicksilver of Dollond's 

 glass was down to half a degree belotv zero ; and that of Martin's, 

 which was absurdly graduated only to four degrees above zero, 

 sunk quite into the brass guard of the ball ; so that when the 

 weather became most interesting this was useless. On the 10th, 

 at eleven at night, though the air was perfectly still, Dollond's 

 glass went down to one degree below zero I This strange severity 

 of the weather made me very desirous to know what degree of 

 cold there might be in such an exalted and near situation as 

 Newton. We had therefore, on the morning of the 10th, written 



to Mr. -, and entreated him to hang out his thermometer, 



made by Adams ; and to pay some attention to it morning and 

 evening ; expecting wonderful phsenomena, in so elevated a 

 region, at two hundred feet or more above my house. But, 

 behold! on the 10th, at eleven at night, it was down only to 17, 

 and the next morning at 22, when mine was at ten ! We were 

 so disturbed at this unexpected reverse of comparative local cold, 



that we sent one of my glasses up, thinking that of Mr. 



must, some how, be wrongly constructed. But, when the instru- 

 ments came to be confronted, they went exactly together : so 

 that, for one night at least, the cold at Newton was 1 8 degrees 

 less than at Selbome ; and, through the whole frost, 10 or 12 

 degrees ; ^ and indeed, when we came to observe consequences, 

 we could readily credit this ; for all my laurustines, bays, ilexes, 

 arbutuses, cypresses, and even my Portugal laurels,^ and (wliich 

 occasions more regret) my fine sloping laurel hedge, were scorched 

 up; while, at Newton, the same trees have not lost a leaf! 



We had steady frost on to the 25th, when the thermometer in 

 the morning was down to 10 with us, and at Newton only to 21. 

 Strong frost continued till the 31st, when some tendency to thaw 

 was observed ; and, by January the 3d, 1 785, the thaw was con- 

 firmed, and some rain fell. 



A circumstance that I must not omit, because it was new to 

 us, is, that on Friday, December the 10th, being bright sun-shine, 



^ [In the still weather which usually accompanies a very hard frost, the coldest 

 air settles in the hollows, and here the lowest temperatures are observed.] 



^ Mr. Miller, in his Gardener's Dictionary, says positively that the Portugal 

 laurels remained untouched in the remarkable frost of 1739-40. So that either 

 that accurate observer was much mistaken, or else the frost of December 1784 was 

 much more severe and destructive than that in the year above-mentioned. 



