Description | Daily observations on weather and natural history, kept at Mongewell, Oxfordshire. Entries are made on printed sheets for date, thermometer readings, barometer readings, wind direction and strength, rainfall, general weather remarks, with natural history and agricultural observations. The printed form specifies readings at 8.00am, 12.00, 4.00pm and 8.00pm, but with handwritten amendments and variations; the 8.00pm time is generally amended to 10.00pm in manuscript. However for much of the volume, observations are limited to three per day, made at 9.00am, 2.00pm, and 9.00pm.
Two entries note exceptionally cold weather in late spring and early summer: on 26 May, 'very severe cold. Kidney beans in the K[itchen] Garden killed...' [p.30]; and on 20 June, 'The effects of the uncommonly severe cold at this season on animals were extraordinary; numbers of Swallows were killed; & several new shorn sheep' [p.33].
Entries made within 'The Naturalist's Journal, By the Honble. Daines Barrington' (London, printed for Benjamin White & Son, n.d.). The printed columns are headed: Year; Place; Soil; Therm[omete]r; Barom[ete]r; Wind; Inches of Rain or Sn[ow] Size of Hail-st[one]; Weather; Trees first in leaf - Fungi first appear; Plants first in flower: Mosses vegetate; Birds and Insects first appear, or disappear; Observations with regard to fish, and other animals; Miscellaneous Observations and Memorandums. There is an index to the journal, which has not been completed in this volume.
Paper label on the front cover inscribed in ink: 'The Naturalist's Journal 1795'. |