THE “UNDERCLIFF” OK THE ISLE OF WIGHT ITS CLIMATE, HISTORY, AND NATURAL PRODUCTIONS. : THE “UNDERCLIFF” OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT; ITS CLIMATE, HISTORY, AND NATURAL PRODUCTIONS. BY GEORGE A. MARTIN, M.D. PRODESSE OMNIBUS. LONDON JOHN CHURCHILL, PRINCES STREET, SOHO. MDCCCXLTX. : LONDON GEORGE WOOD FALL AND SON, ANGEL COURT, SKINNER STREET. TO SIR JAMES CLARK, BART., F.R.S., WHO FIRST CALLED THE AUTHOR’S ATTENTION TO THE STUDY OF CLIMATE, AND WHOSE KINDNESS AND ASSISTANCE FURTHER ENCOURAGED HIM IN THE PURSUIT OF IT, Cfjts little Volume, WITH EVERY FEELING OF GRATITUDE AND ESTEEM, IS DEDICATED BY HIS DEEPLY OBLIGED AND ATTACHED FRIEND, GEORGE ANNE MARTIN. PREFACE. It has been my wish, in putting together the materials I have been now some year's in collecting, not to con- fine the information they may. contain to any particular class, but to endeavour, in accordance with my motto, to make my little book “ useful to all.” With this view I have attempted to present to the tourist, or passing visitor, such a description of the district as my local knowledge has enabled me to give, and also to afford those who make a more lengthened sojourn, the opportunity of a better acquaintance with the place than the ordinary means within their reach might allow of. While I have tried to avoid the exclusiveness of a mere medical topography, I trust the chapter more par- ticularly devoted to the consideration of climate in connexion with disease, may be found to contain most of the subjects to which such a description is usually directed. b VI PREFACE. The Chapters on Natural History, Geology, and Botany, have been written with a twofold purpose; firstly, to afford the means of amusement to invalids whose strength would admit of their following such pursuits; and secondly, to give to the naturalist as full a description of the natural productions of the Under- cliff as my means would allow. The last Chapter is introduced as a brief record of the rise of the little town of the district, and to pre- serve from oblivion some interesting facts connected with it. I have been convinced of the necessity of this by the extreme difficulty I have had in obtaining dates from those who might be supposed peculiarly concerned in preserving such records. The third Chapter I notice last, as being the most important, and requiring some explanation. It was my original intention to confine my subject to the meteoro- logical facts I have been collecting for some years past; but it struck me that, however interesting such matters may be to a few, they are comparatively useless to the many and I ; believed that by adding some prac- tical inferences, and a popular account of the place itself and its natural productions, the book might be made more gencially acceptable: hence its present form. PREFACE. Vll In consequence of the diversity of methods used in making meteorological observations, I think it right to describe the mode adopted in obtaining the results con- tained in the text. The instruments employed are mercurial and spirit self-registering thermometers, most carefully selected, and compared with an excellent standard thermometer for some months, previously to making observations with them for my journal. After being thus tested as to then accuracy, they have been placed in a little ob- servatory, built expressly in a most exposed, and, for such a purpose, unobjectionable situation. It consists of a thatched roof, supported on wooden uprights, partly resting against a wall ; the whole being between eight and nine feet in height. At a distance of about six feet from the ground small deal boards are fixed transversely, so as to give each pair of thermometers its proper aspect; and the roof is ventilated by a zinc chimney, for the purpose of preventing any accumulation of heated air from affecting the instruments, which are hung upon the deal boards just mentioned, each pair being placed opposite a cardinal point of the compass. There is no building or high ground within a con- viii PREFACE. siderable distance, and the whole has been so contrived, that the northern pair of thermometers, from which the results given have been derived, can by no accident be affected by radiation or reflection. The heights by actual measurement of three pairs of the instruments employed (including those to the north) are 153^- feet above the sea-level at spring tides, while the remain- ing paii’, which has an eastern aspect, is fixed under a somewhat similar building, at a height of 186 feet. I have shown my observatory, and sought the opi- nion and advice of all those friends and acquaintances interested in meteorological pursuits who have visited the Undercliff, and have freely availed myself of their suggestions; and amongst them I may mention Mr. Newman, of Regent Street, to whose excellent instru- ments I owe much of the accuracy of my observations, and through whose suggestion I hope to add a set of electrical observations to my series. Those who know the position of my observatory, vill hardly feel inclined to accuse me of having selected a too sheltered or favourable situation ; the remark of all who have examined it has been, that it is too much exposed, and likely rather to underrate the temperature than to over-rate it; my object, however, has been to PREFACE. IX elicit truth, ancl I would rather understate facts than subject myself to the imputation of exaggerating them. The observations have been taken regularly at 9 a.m. during the space of ten years (Dec. 1838 to Dec. 1848), with the omission of only one clay. The amount of rain has been drawn off from the pluviometer every morning ; and it maybe here remarked that the un- paralleled quantity which has fallen during the past year, will greatly affect the general average, and place it, perhaps, between one and two inches higher than it really is. I mention this more particularly as I be- lieve no former observers in the UnderclifF have regis- tered, within some inches, so great an amount as that which has fallen in 1848. The hygrometer and barometer have been observed regularly twice a day for a period of seven years, though the observations on the latter instrument ex- tend through a space of ten years. I think it right to describe the mode by which the results given in the tables were obtained, and have in- serted a leaf taken from my journal, for the purpose of showing how the observations have been kept. x PREFACE a! to & to .2 a © u Moon’s § (A "3 Age. (d O gai 0 03 O C2 TT 03 2 >» y >* 15 ca -*-» W 2 Q C5 C a D s © U5 US s a Succes- sive Daily Range. rr EJ in n w © Cm 01 <*-> M O 3 o O O <£ 2 £ a> Q O «m i O S 9 a os CO C*3 a M 03 'd E c/5 s.w. z W is CD .2 03 C«4 s •O 3 8 O s’ 4 § s 1848. o O a 03 a c5 CO e C . H in 3 2 a> s in M ^ . O «s *s 3 A.M. ' XJ H *J s.s.w. 3rd, hours. hours. 'I* rt c-^ 03 0) CD Maximum Minimum .2 .2 cfl u 24 24 *3 Remarks. fco e 1 « CO a> cj <1> H co Cm OJ X3 S o ®-s .§*5 General JANUARY 0.2 <m 5» ca 3 bS’S 8 ft CO O 8 and •—< ^2 8 3 Tj« h <5.t: 01 c/3 V « Weather %. e 0 >0 03 §1 8 u •s »o a> »o 3 x E a MONDAY, £ e o s •M c/3 o 03 *1* 2 *o »o -T 0 .2 <b H ‘0 X3 to H CD *0 (M 5 O X V o US Q c W »o I . 0 I 03 55 X a. CO 2 8 ©J A « 03 CO c . a m >-< 2 CO S 29-83 2g JO i •S 3 g O is 5 g 2 <i x: 8 2-1 s a id 03 a, 3 3 ~r 03 «m e.'S .2 o O 11 . g£ e° 03 O X -j* .2 c ° s 3 h o .BP S!® i«5 § g *3 XJ *3 JS X Hour. ^ 03 O CD PREFACE XI Range. Range. doors. Successive 2*0 In Daily Daily Temperature. o sive Succes- Daily 1*5 Range. pH c* of Doors. Ranges of Daily Range. Out 2 w 73 (N 54 CM >o 50 »o >- 8 X at 4tii. e in hours. c taken in t- A.M. Z hours. hours. 24 £ct a o’clock Maximum Pu Minimum in 24 24 Remarks. Observation ajj 9 Mean r JANUARY General of the »o Situations. 49*00 49*50 and Mean all iO Weather 40 Cl TUESDAY, •£ -T 52 47 9 Thermometer. tn 9 52 48 50 of Cl W T *o 9 Situation »p Cl z <* *0 **T Cl -r at hours. taken in in Doors. A.M. hours. 24 Temperature hours. of o’clock Maximum Minimum in 24 24 out Observation 9 Mean H «s xn PREFACE s Sij Differ- <5 ence. >o B. fi E successive V Range. a Eh . 1-83 o a i®I 11 Temperature. daily X Extreme lowest 54-00 ° gt- Mean « §! rs S S3 sa £ B * £ pi o £ S'3 Temperature. highest Extreme 69-00 P x pq 1« GO Range.