The Natural History of Selborne

Balloon by Thomas Bewick. To read the entire entry on the balloon (or any other entry over 500 words), click on the entry date, it will take you to the full post.

• 1790: October 16, 1790 – Red wings return, & are seen on Selborne down. There are no haws this year for the redwings, & field fares.
• 1789: October 16, 1789 – Colchicums, a fine double sort, still in bloom.  Ivy blows.  Some mushrooms with thick stems, & pale gills.
• 1786: October 16, 1786 – Bror. & Sister Benj. came.
• 1784: October 16, 1784 – Mr Blanchard passed by us in full sight at about a quarter before three P. M. in an air-balloon!!!  He mounted at Chelsea about noon; but came down at Sunbury to permit Mr Sheldon to get out; his weight over-loading the machine.  At a little before four P. M. Mr Bl. landed at the town of Romsey in the county of Hants.
  Newspaper clipping pasted in:  “Extract of a Letter from a Gentleman in a village fifty miles S.W. of London, dated Oct. 21.  “From the fineness of the weather, and the steadiness of the wind to the N.E. I began to be possessed with a notion last Friday that we should see Mr Blanchard the day following, and therefore I called upon many of my neighbours in the street, and told them my suspicions.  The next day proving also bright and the wind continuing as before, I became more sanguine than ever; and issuing forth, exhorted all those who had any curiosity to look sharp from about one to three o’clock as they would stand a good chance of being entertained with a very extraordinary sight.  That day I was not content to call at the houses, but I went out to the plow-men and labourers in the fields, and advised them to keep an eye at times to the N. and N.E.  But about one o’clock there came up such a haze that I could not see the hill;  however, not long after the mist cleared away in some degree, and people began to mount the hill.  I was busy in and out till a quarter after two and observed a cloud of London smoke, hanging to the N. and N.N.E.  This appearance increased my expectation.  At twenty minutes before three there was a cry that the balloon was come.  We ran into the orchard, where we found twenty or thirty neighbours assembled, and from the green bank at the end of my house, saw a dark blue speck at a most prodigious height dropping as it were out of the sky, and hanging amidst the regions of the air, between the weather-cock of the Tower and the Maypole; and then over my chimney; and in ten minutes more behind the wallnut tree.  The machine looked mostly of a dark blue colour, but some times reflected the rays of the sun.  With a telescope I could discern the boat and the ropes that supported it.  To my eye the balloon appeared no bigger than a large tea-urn.  When we saw it first, it was north of Farnham over Farnham heath; and never came on this (east) side of Farnham road; but continued to pass on tthe N.W. side of Bentley, Froil, Alton, &c.  and so for Medstead, Lord Northington’s at the Grange, and to the right of Alresford and Winchester.  I was wonderfully struck with the phenomenon, and, like Milton’s “Belated Peasant,” felt my heart rebound with joy and fear at the same time.  After a while I surveyed […]
• 1783: October 16, 1783 – Rover find pheasants every day; but no partridges.  The air is full of gossamer.  There is fine grass in the meadows.  …”see, the fading, many-coloured woods,/Shade deepening over shade, the coutnry round,/Imbrown.” Thomson.
• 1782: October 16, 1782 – Gathered-in my apples.  Knobbed russetings, & nonpareils, a few.  Near four bushels of dearlings on the meadow-tree: fruit small.
• 1781: October 16, 1781 – The mill at Hawlkey cannot work one-tenth of the time for want of water.
• 1780: October 16, 1780 – Grapes improve in the morning.
• 1778: October 16, 1778 – The rooks carry-off the wallnuts, & acorns from the trees.  One house-martin appears: by it’s air & manner it seemed to be a young one: it scouted along as if pinched with the cold.
• 1776: October 16, 1776 – The redbreast’s note is very sweet, & pleasing; did it not carry with it ugly associations of ideas, & put us in mind of the approach of winter.
• 1774: October 16, 1774 – Great fog, white frost, bright.
• 1773: October 16, 1773 – Mr Yalden finished his barley-harvest, some of which had been cut more than six weeks. In general the grain is not spoiled, but by drying & frequent turning in a floor will be tolerable.