NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, 273 
Bee Pee Wet Tt ed 
TO THE SAME, 
THERE were some circumstances attending the remarkable frost 
in January, 1776, so singular and striking, that a short detail of 
them may not be unacceptable. 
The most certain way to be exact will be to copy the passages 
from my journal, which were taken from time to time, as things 
occurred. But it may be proper previously to remark that the 
first week in January was uncommonly wet, and drowned with vast 
rains from every quarter : from whence may be inferred, as there 
is great reason to believe is the case, that intense frosts seldom 
take place till the earth is perfectly glutted and chilled with water ;* 
and hence dry autumns are seldom followed by rigorous winters. 
January 7th.—Snow driving all the day, which was followed by 
frost, sleet, and some snow, till the 12th, when a prodigious mass 
overwhelmed all the works of men, drifting over the tops of the 
gates and filling the hollow lanes. 
On the 14th the writer was obliged to be much abroad; and 
thinks he never before or since has encountered such rugged 
Siberian weather. Many of the narrow roads were now filled 
above the tops of the hedges; through which the snow was driven 
into most romantic and grotesque shapes, so striking to the 
imagination as not to be seen without wonder and pleasure. The 
poultry dared not to stir out of their roosting-places ; for cocks and 
hens are so dazzled and confounded by the glare of snow that they 
would soon perish without assistance. The hares also lay sullenly 
in their seats, and would not move till compelled by hunger ; being 
conscious—poor animals—that the drifts and heaps treacherously 
betray their footsteps, and prove fatal to numbers of them. 
* The autumn preceding January 1768 was very wet, and particularly the month of 
September, during which there fell at Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, six inches and a 
half of rain. And the terrible long frost in 1739-40 set in after a rainy season, and when 
the springs were very high. 
ae 
