VAKIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 355 



REFLECTION OF FOG. 



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

 if they will turn their backs to the light, they will see their shades 

 impressed on the fog in rude gigantic proportions. This phe- 

 nomenon seems not to have been attended to, but implies the 

 great density of the meteor at that juncture. 



HONEY-DEW.i 



June 4, 1783. Vast honey-dews this week. The reason of 

 these seems 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. 



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. 



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 



'[[See note to p. 331.] 



