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greater heat and longer drought than this year’s record shows ; 
and it is not the first time that we have had great heat at the end 
of Autumn, and great cold at the commencement of winter ; but. 
it is the combination of all these in one year that makes the 
weather of the year remarkable. But it is not altogether 
exceptional ; and by way of showing how very similar our present. 
seasons are to those that our forefathers went through, I will give 
a short record of the weather of a season more than 500 years 
ago. In the 14th Century there was a William Merle, who was 
Fellow of Merton, and Rector of Driby, in Lincolnshire. He 
was a close observer of the weather, and has left a record of every 
week of the weather at Oxford during the seven years between 
1337 and 1344. Of course, not having our modern instruments, 
his observations could not be very minute, but he has done his 
best to mark the differences. The rain record is either pluvia 
magna and maxima, or parva and minima, and for the cold his 
distinguishing marks are gelu, pruina and glacies. The record is 
called “‘ Considerationes Temperiei per 7 annos per Magistrum 
Willelmum Merle, socium Domus de Merton—1337-1344,” It 
is preserved in the Bodleian Library, and a few years ago was 
published in facsimile by Messrs. Stanford. Now the record for 
1338-9 shows hard frosts during nearly the whole of December, 
January, and February, followed by a very hot June, July and 
August, but with slight interruptions of rain, and very mild 
throughout after the cessation of the frost. So far it is curiously 
like our record of this year—three months frost and three months 
drought ; but the likeness does not altogether hold further, for in 
1339 the whole of October, November and December were very 
mild but with much rain. I think this is a good answer to those 
who are fond of maintaining that the climate of England is 
different in this our 19th century to what it was in former 
centuries ; it may be changed in some few parts where extensive 
tracts have been reclaimed from marsh and fenland or forests, but 
in the main it is absolutely the same ; and so it always must be as 
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