OF SELBORNE. 323 
mometer fell to 11°, 7°, 6°, 6°, and at Selborne to 
7°, 6°, 10°; and on the 81st of January, just be- 
fore sunrise, with rime on the trees and on the tube 
of the glass, the quicksilver sunk exactly to zero, 
being 32 degrees below the freezing point; but by 
eleven in the morning, though in the shade, it 
Sprung up to 163° ;* a most unusual degree of cold 
this for the south of England! During these four 
nights the cold was so penetrating that it occa- 
sioned ice in warm chambers and under beds, and 
in the day the wind was so keen that persons of ro- 
bust 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 trode dusty, and, 
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 houskeepers living. According to all ap- 
pearances, we might now have expected the contin- 
uance of this rigorous weather for weeks to come, 
since every night increased in severity; but, be- 
hold, without any apparent cause, on the Ist of 
February a thaw took place, and some rain fol- 
lowed before night, making good the observation 
above, that frosts often go off as it were at once, 
* At Selborne the cold was greater than at any other place 
that the author could hear of with certainty : though some re- 
ported at the time that at a village in Kent the thermometer fell 
two degrees below zero, viz., 34 degrees below the freezing 
oint. 
The thermometer used at Selborne was graduated by Benja- 
min Martin. 
