There were some circumstances attending the remarkable frost of January 1776 so singular and striking, that a short detail of them may not be unacceptable.

The most certain way to be exact will be to copy the passages from my journal, which were taken from time to time, as things occurred. But it may be proper previously to remark, that the first week in January was uncommonly wet, and drowned with vast rain from every quarter; from whence may be inferred, as there is great reason to believe is the case, that intense frosts seldom take place till the earth is completely glutted and chilled with water; and hence dry autumns are seldom followed by rigorous winters.

January 7th.—Snow driving all the day, which was followed by frost, sleet, and some snow, till the twelfth, when a prodigious mass overwhelmed all the works of men, drifting over the tops of the gates, and filling the hollow lanes.

On the 14th, the writer was obliged to be much abroad; and thinks he never before, or since, has encountered such rugged Siberian weather. Many of the narrow roads are now filled above the tops of the hedges; through which the snow was driven in most romantic and grotesque shapes, so striking to the imagination as not to be seen without wonder and pleasure. The poultry dared not stir out of their roosting-places; for cocks and hens are so dazzled and confounded by the glare of the snow, that they would soon perish without assistance. The hares also lay sullenly in their seats, and would not move till compelled by hunger; being conscious, poor animals, that the drifts and heaps treacherously betray their footsteps, and prove fatal to numbers of them.

From the 14th, the snow continued to increase, and began to stop the road-waggons and coaches, which could no longer keep in their regular stages; and especially on the western roads, where the fall appears to have been greater than in the south. The company at Bath, that wanted to attend the Queen's birthday, were strangely incommoded; many carriages of persons who got, in their way to town from Bath, as far as Marlborough, after strange embarrassment, here came to a dead stop. The ladies fretted, and offered large rewards to labourers if they would shovel them a track to London; but the relentless heaps of snow were too bulky to be removed; and so the 18th passed over, leaving the company in very uncomfortable circumstances at the Castle and other inns.

On the 20th, the sun shone out for the first time since the frost began; a circumstance that has been remarked before, much in favour of vegetation. All this time the cold was not very intense, for the thermometer stood at 29°, 28° 25° and thereabout; but on the 21st it descended to 20°. The birds now began to be in a very pitiable and starving condition. Tamed by the season, sky-larks settled in the streets of towns, because they saw the ground was bare; rooks frequented dung-hills close to houses; hares now came into men's gardens, and scraping away the snow, devoured such plants as they could find.

On the 22nd, the author had occasion to go to London; through a sort of Laplandian scene very wild and grotesque indeed. But the metropolis itself exhibited a still more singular appearance than the country; for, being bedded deep in snow, the pavement could not be touched by the wheels or the horses' feet, so that the carriages ran about without the least noise. Such an exemption from din and clatter was strange, but not pleasant; it seemed to convey an uncomfortable idea of desolation.

On the 27th, much snow fell all day, and in the evening the frost became very intense. At South Lambeth, for the four following nights, the thermometer fell to 11°, 7°, 0°, 6°; and at Selborne to 7°, 6°, 10°; and on the 31st of January, just before sunrise, with rime on the trees, and on the tube of the glass, the quicksilver sunk exactly to zero, being 32° below freezing point; but by eleven in the morning, though in the shade, it sprung up to 16-1/2°—a most unusual degree of cold this for the south of England. During these four nights the cold was so penetrating that it occasioned ice in warm and protected chambers; and in the day the wind was so keen that persons of robust constitutions could scarcely endure to face it. The Thames was at once so frozen over, both above and below the bridge, that crowds ran about on the ice. The streets were now strangely encumbered with snow, which crumbled and trod dusty, mid, turning gray, resembled bay-salt; what had fallen on the roofs was so perfectly dry, that from first to last it lay twenty-six days on the houses in the city—a longer time than had been remembered by the oldest housekeepers living. According to all appearances, we might now have expected the continuance of this rigorous weather for weeks to come, since every night increased in severity; but behold, without any apparent on the 1st of February a thaw took place, and some rain followed before night; making good the observation, that frosts often go off, as it were, at once, without any gradual declension of cold. On the 2nd of February, the thaw persisted; and on the 3rd, swarms of little insects were frisking and sporting in a court-yard at South Lambeth, as if they had felt no frost. Why the juices in the small bodies and smaller limbs of such minute beings are not frozen, is a matter of curious inquiry.

REV. GILBERT WHITE.

[Note: Rev. Gilbert White (1720-1793), author of the 'Natural History of Selborne,' one of the most charming books on natural history in the language.]

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