xperiments: we may
farther add that the pauses in echoes, when they cease and yet are taken
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 parlour
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
barometers at this village, and so continues to do, be the weight of the
atmosphere what it may. The plate of the barometer at Newton 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 standing 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 barometers 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.

I am, etc.

LETTER LXI.

Since the weather of a district is undoubtedly part of its natural
history, I shall make no further apology for the four following letters,
which will contain many particulars concerning some of the great frosts,
and a few respecting some very hot summers, that have distinguished
themselves from the rest during the course of my observations.

As the frost in January 1768 was, for the small time it lasted, the most
severe that we had then known for many years, and was remarkably
injurious to evergreens, some account of its rigour, and reason of its
ravages, may be useful, and not unacceptable to persons that delight in
planting and ornamenting; and may parti