52 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



seas, but are solid enough to be equally dangerous, many 

 masses being so heavy as to ground in ten fathoms of water. 

 Boston Advertiser, Nov. 18, 1 871. 



PECULIARITIES OF THE WINTER OF 1871-1872 IN EUROPE. 



The past winter has been a very remarkable one in England. 

 The cold weather set in unusually early and severely with 

 the commencement of November, and from that date to De- 

 cember 13, Mr. Glaisher's weekly tables of meteorological ob- 

 servations, taken at Greenwich, show the temperature to have 

 been uniformly below the mean of the last fifty years, with 

 the break of only a single day, the mean depression for the 

 whole period being 6 5' Fahr. The coldest day was Decem- 

 ber 8, when the thermometer fell to 18 6' Fahr., and the tem- 

 perature of the twenty-four hours was 19 3' below the mean. 

 Throughout France the month of November was very severe, 

 the mean temperature of the month having been lower only 

 four times during the last century. According to statistics 

 presented to the Academy of Science by M. Ch. Sainte-Claire 

 Deville, the thermometer fell as low as 11 Fahr. at Montar- 

 gis on December 3, while even at Marseilles the remarkably 

 low temperature (for that locality) of 27 5' Fahr. is recorded 

 on November 23. During the early part of December the 

 frost continued still more severe in France and Italy, where 

 much snow fell. At Rome and throughout France trees and 

 shrubs which had survived many winters were entirely de- 

 stroyed. M. Delaunay remarks that the cold advanced, as is 

 usually the case, from northeast to southwest. The minimum 

 temperatures were recorded at Groningen, in Holland, on De- 

 cember 7,14 Fahr.; at Brussels, 9 5' Fahr. on the 8th, and 

 at Paris, 6 Fahr. on the 9th. This extremely low tempera- 

 ture appears to have been confined to a very limited tract of 

 country between Paris and Charleville. On the same day 

 the temperature was above the freezing point in Scotland, 

 within reach of the influence of the Gulf Stream, as far north 

 as Nairn, and in the greater part of England, falling only at 

 Greenwich as low as 28 Fahr. This severe frost was fol- 

 lowed in England by a period of exceptionally mild weather 

 of probably unprecedented length. For ninety-seven days, 

 from December 13 to March 18, Mr. Glaisher's tables show 

 that the temperature was above the average on eighty-nine, 



