- 
244 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. . 
Dollond’s glass was down to half a degree below 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 roth, at eleven at night, though the air 
was perfectly still, Dollond’s glass went down to one degree 
below zero! 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, there- 
fore, on the morning of the roth, written to Mr. , and 
entreated him to hang out his thermometer, made by Adams, 
and to pay some attention to it morning and evening, expect- 
ing wonderful phenomena, in so elevated a region, at two 
hundred feet or more above my house. But, behold! on the 
-toth, at eleven at night, it was down only to 17°, and the next 
morning at 22°, when mine was at 10°! 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, 
somehow, be wrongly constructed. But, when the instruments 
came to be confronted, they went exactly together; so that, 
for one night at least, the cold at Newton was 18° less than at 
Selborne, and, through the whole frost, 10° or 12°; 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 (which 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 the 25th, when the thermometer in 
the morning was down to r1o° with us, and at Newton only to 
21°. Strong frost continued till the 31st, when some tendency 
to thaw was observed; and by January 3d, 1785, the thaw 
was confirmed, and some rain fell. 
A circumstance that I must not omit, because it was new to 
us, is, that on Friday, December roth, being bright sunshine, 
