Meteorological Journal for June. 77 



The writer of the above, we may observe, does not appear 

 to have been aware, that an interesting paper by Mr. Tem- 

 pleton, on the naturalization of plants, was published in the 

 eighth volume of the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, 

 and reprinted in Nicholson's Philosophical Journal for July 

 1803. 



Results of a Meteorological Journal for June 1826, kept at 

 the Observatory of the Royal Academy, Gosport, Hants. 



General Observations. 



This month has been remarkably dry, warm, and calm, 

 with prevailing winds from the N., N.E., and N.W., and hot 

 sunshine at intervals. 



No measurable rain fell here, except on the 1 st, 7th, 27th, and 

 30th; and the sun having attained and is now returning from 

 his greatest North declination, the heat at the earth's surface, 

 after an unprecedentedly dry spring, is powerful. But it is not 

 only the descending caloric contained in the great angle which 

 the meridional solar rays make with the visible horizon at this 

 time that causes us to feel the heat so oppressive, but the com- 

 bined effect of the incident and reflected rays, and radiations, 

 by which we are placed as it were between two fires, or in a 

 double heat ; and so long as the rain keeps off in a peculiarly 

 dry season, the heat naturally increases, because the nocturnal 

 dews, however copious they may be in this latitude, are not 

 sufficiently heavy to lay the dust, and lessen the heat retained 

 in its transparent particles. It is remarkable that w r e have not 

 had so dry a spring, or so small a quantity of rain as the last 

 afforded, since 1806, — a period of 20 years. 



The 27th was a very hot sultry day and night; as soon after 

 noon the thermometer in the shade, in a northern aspect, rose 

 to 86 degrees, and a dead calm was observed at intervals, with 

 glows of descending heat from a bed of cirrocumulus in the 

 zenith, which confined the heat downwards, and raised the 

 thermometer as high as its maximum for the last summer. In 

 the early part of the morning there was a heavy thunder-storm 

 at Southampton and in other parts of Hampshire ; only a light 

 shower of rain fell here, but the storm was distinctly traced 

 by the blackness of the sky. At 2 o'clock P.M. a perfect 

 anthelion appeared for about two minutes, on the right side 

 of a large cumulostratus cloud, which had the striking appear- 

 ance of an unornamented crown and cushion : the anthelion 

 resembled the sun's disc divested of its rays, as we sometimes 

 see it by the intervention of a light attenuated cloud ; it was 

 about 95 degrees distant from the true sun, with an altitude 



of 



