13G PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



The individual months which have had a lower temperature are 

 rather more numerous; but even they are not more than nine or 

 ten in a century, as is shown by the following table: — 



MEAN TEMPERATURK. 



" The whole of the foregoing facts prove that the distinguishing 

 feature of the winter of 1878-79 has been constant low temperature, 

 and thereto it is desirable to add that its essential characteristic 

 has been long-continued moderate frost, without any of those 

 .sudden periods of intense cold when the thermometer even in the 

 neighbourhood of London runs down nearly to zero, as it did in 

 1855, in 1860, and in 1867." 



On the same day there appeared another interesting letter from 

 Mr. Thomas L. Plant, the well-known meteorologist, of Birming- 

 ham. He mentions several severe winters, notably in 1813-14, 

 when the frost lasted from December 26 to March 21, the mean 

 temperature in January, 1814, being 26*8. In this winter the 

 Thames was frozen over. In the winter of 1819-20 the frost 

 lasted from November to March; in 1839 there was an eight- weeks' 

 frost, the mean temperature for January being 28 # 5 ; in 1855 

 (during the Crimean war) the mean temperature for January and 

 February was 31° and 29° respectively; the mean temperature of 

 thirty days ending January 16, 1861, was 26°. Mr. Plant adds 

 that the Christmas Eve of 1860 the thermometer registered 34° of 

 frost, or 2° below zero, which finds no equal in his records since 

 January, 1838. The next severe winters were in 1870-71. Mr. 

 Plant states that the mean temperature in the Midlands in 

 December last was 31°, and in January 29 'S . We may add that 

 on Christmas Day, 1860, the thermometer at Nottingham regis- 

 tered 13-8° below zero, as vouched for by Mr. E. J. Lowe, of the 

 Beeston Observatory — the mean temperature there on that day 

 being 4° only, being 32^° below the avei^age of forty- three years.] 



March. — Effects of severe winter are disastrous in many 

 botanical gardens, notably as reported at Manchester: — "There 

 has not been such severe weather since December, 1860, nor such 



