’ 
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 235 
up again, like the pauses in music, surprise the hearers, and 
have a fine effect on the imagination. 
The gentleman above mentioned has just fixed a barometer 
in his parlor at Newton Valence. The tube was first filled here 
(at Selborne) twice with care, when the mercury agreed and 
stood exactly with my own; but, being filled twice again at 
Newton, the mercury stood, on account of the great elevation 
of that house, three-tenths of an inch lower than the barom- 
eters at this village, and so continues to do, be the weight of the 
atmosphere what it may. The plate of the barometer at New- 
ton is figured as low as 27°; because in stormy weather the 
mercury there will sometimes descend below 28°. We have 
supposed Newton House to stand two hundred feet higher 
than this house: but if the rule holds good, which says that 
mercury in a barometer sinks one-tenth of an inch for every 
- hundred feet elevation, then the Newton barometer, by stand- 
ing three-tenths lower than that of Selborne, proves that Newton 
House must be three hundred feet higher than that in which 
I am writing, instead of two hundred. 
It may not be impertinent to add that the barometers at 
Selborne stand three-tenths of an inch lower than the barom- 
eters at South Lambeth; whence we may conclude that the 
former place is about three hundred feet higher than the latter ; 
and with good reason, because the streams that rise with us 
run into the Thames at Weybridge, and so to London. Of 
course therefore there must be lower ground all the way from 
Selborne to South Lambeth; the distance between which, all 
the windings and indentings of the streams considered, cannot 
be less than a hundred miles. 
