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XXVI.' — The late Mild Winter, An Extract from a Letter to 

 the Vice-Secretary. By John Williams, Esq., C.M.H.S., of 

 Pitmaston, near Worcester. 



(Dated January 20, 1846.) 



Many of my neighbours, knowing that I have kept a Meteoro- 

 logical Journal for many years past, have questioned me if I 

 ever remembered so mild a winter as the present has been down 

 to this time ? My answer was, that I have recorded several 

 mild winters, from October down to March and April, when we 

 have experienced several sharp frosty mornings or cold dry 

 north-easterly winds. I commenced my weather-journal in 

 1808, and have continued to make daily observations down to 

 the present time, not merely a daily registration of the ther- 

 mometer, barometer, wind, and degree of cloudiness or sun, 

 dryness or moisture ; and for eleven years of the period kept a 

 rain-gauge ; also occasional observations on the atmospherical 

 electricity, and a record of all the storms in England, the neigh- 

 bouring continent, and every part of the world, collected from 

 newspapers, &c., and entered in the margin of my journal of 

 corresponding dates ; also a Calendar of Flora, stating the day 

 the blossoms of fruit-trees first opened, on different aspects, on 

 walls or standards ; appearances of agricultural crops, and the 

 expectant observations of practical farmers, as well as my own. 

 When I explained all this to Sir David Brewster (then Dr. 

 Brewster), with whom I had some correspondence about ten 

 years ago, and made, for about three years, at his request an 

 hourly observation on the 17th of July, for twenty-four hours, 

 of the barometer and thermometer, but was. obliged to give it 

 up as my health suffered from exposure to night air, speaking of 

 my journal, Dr. Brewster expressed a hope that I would not 

 destroy it, as in his opinion it would be a valuable record, de- 

 serving of preservation. 



The season that has prevailed from the beginning of October 

 last down to this day has been almost the same as in the years . 

 1821-22; that is, from the 1st of October, 1821, to the end of 

 May, 1822. It then commenced with much blowing weather 

 from south-westerly points, going round occasionally to the 

 north-west, and sometimes, for twelve or twenty-four hours, to 

 the north or north-east ; and on a few calm, bright nights the 

 radiated surface-warmth reduced the temperature of the soil and 

 leaves of plants sufficient to produce hoar-frost on grass in low 

 situations ; and, once or twice, the thermometer, at 8 a.m., in 

 January, was at 28° ; but the average maximum of the month 

 of January this year exceeds that of January, 1822. Scarlet 

 geraniums, however, in 1821-22, stood all the winter uninjured 



