NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, 275 
in the morning, though in the shade, it sprang 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 
occasioned ice in warm chambers and under beds; and in the 
day the wind was so keen that persons of robust constitutions 
could scarcely endure to face it. The Thames was at once so 
frozen over both above and below bridge that crowds ran about on 
the ice. The streets were now strangely encumbered with snow, 
which crumbled and trod dusty; and, turning grey, 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 house- 
keepers living. According to all appearances we might now have 
expected the continuance of this rigorous weather for weeks to 
come, since every night increased in severity ; but, behold, without 
any apparent cause, on the Ist of February a thaw took place, and 
some rain followed before night, making good the observation 
above, that frosts often go off as it were at once, without any 
gradual declension of cold. On the 2nd of February the thaw 
persisted ; and on the 3rd swarms of little insects were frisking 
and sporting in a court-yard at South Lambeth, as if they had felt 
no frost. Why the juices in the small bodies and smaller limbs 
of such minute beings are not frozen is a matter of curious 
inquiry. 
Severe frosts seem to be partial, or to run in currents ; for at the 
same juncture, as the author was informed by accurate correspon- 
dents, at Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, the thermometer stood 
at 19°; at Blackburn, in Lancashire, at 19°; and at Manchester at 
21°, 20°,and 18°. Thus does some unknown circumstance strangely 
overbalance latitude, and render the cold sometimes much greater 
in the southern than the northern parts of this kingdom. 
The consequences of this severity were, that in Hampshire, at the 
melting of the snow, the wheat looked well, and the turnips came 
forth little injured. The laurels and laurustines were somewhat 
damaged, but only in hot aspects. No evergreens were quite 
destroyed; and not half the damage sustained that befell in 
January, 1768. Those laurels that were a little scorched on the 
south sides were perfectly untouched on their north sides. The 
* At Selborne the cold was greater than at any other place that the author could hear 
of with certainty : though some reported at the time that at a village in Kent the ther- 
Mometer fell two degrees below zero, viz. thirty-four degrees below the freezing point. 
The thermometer used at Selborne was graduated by Benjamin Martin, 
