having become older, and consequently colder. In 1783 or 1784, in the course of a conversation I had with my brewer, who is very intelligent and eminent in his way, he maintained that an alteration had taken place. This observation he made from a variety of circumstances; the diminution of the number of swallows, the coldness that attends rain, the alteration in the hours of labour at the time of sowing barley, which a great many years ago was a work performed very early in the morning on account of the intenseness of the heat after the sun had been up some time. He added, that for many years past, he had found, that the barley did not malt as formerly, and the period he fixed on was the year in which the earthquake at Lisbon happened. I was much surprised at this last observation, and did not pay much attention to it till last summer, when I happened to read Les Annales Politiques
