76 Miscellaneous, 



time extreme and piercing, though at the period mentioned in 

 January it was not disagreeable. At low water a great extent of mud- 

 banks is uncovered at the part of the river where the Eels were killed, 

 and at this season these fishes are believed to be imbedded in the 

 mud; they would seem to have suffered from the intense cold arising 

 from the rapid evaporation produced by the piercing east wind. 



Since January 1814, such a sensation of extreme cold has not 

 been experienced at Belfast, and at that time, as I am informed by 

 Mr. Hyndman, great quantities of Eels met with a similar fate in the 

 river Lagan. They were seen by him floating down the stream dead, 

 at the Long Bridge in this town. It is most probably in reference 

 to 1814 that Mr. Templeton has remarked in his ' Catalogue of Irish 

 Vertebrate Animals,' that "great numbers of eels inhabiting the 

 shallow watery mud on the shore of Belfast Lough were killed during 

 a severe winter*." It is worthy of remark, that at the time just 

 mentioned the wind was also easterly. In the Meteorological Report 

 for January 1814, published in the ' Belfast Magazine,' it is ob- 

 served, " The continuance of the wind in the east for a longer time 

 than usual has produced such a degree of cold as the oldest person 

 in Ireland now alive cannot remember. Notwithstanding the rise of 

 the tide, a sheet of ice has covered the bay of Belfast, strong enough 

 to enable people to walk about with perfect safety over the channel, 

 and full half a mile from the quays. Lough Neagh has also been so 

 much frozen as to allow people on horseback to ride into Ram's 

 Island, situated two miles from the shore." I have been credibly in- 

 formed that at the same period laden carts were taken over the ice to 

 the island, and that some sportsmen of the neighbourhood had a drag 

 or trail hunt upon the lake, and followed the hounds on horseback. 



A lighter, when coming to Belfast on the 6th or 7th of the present 

 month, on breaking the ice at a part of the river where the banks 

 are not uncovered to the same extent at low water as where the eels 

 were chiefly killed, exposed a number of them, which, though not 

 dead, were so weak as to be unable to ofi'er any resistance, and were 

 lifted into the vessel. On the days which proved fatal to the eels 

 here great numbers were likewise found dead in the bay at Dun- 

 dalk. 



The minimum thermometer at the Belfast Library indicated on the 

 morning of 



o // 



18''iO I Wind south-west ; mode- 



January 7, 1841 



8, 



9, 



February 6, 



18-50 ' '■^^^• 



rtM.Mr I Wind very high from the 



27-75 



27-50 / ^^'^' ^^y- 



Wm. Thompson. 

 JDonegal Square, Belfast, Feb. 18 n. 



* Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. i. New series. 



