Imaginations and Conjectures. 375 



continues to retain its heat for fome time. Thus 

 the firfl: fnows that fall in the beginning of win- 

 ter, feldom lie long on the furface, but are foon 

 meked, and foon abforbed. After which, the 

 winds that blow over the country on which the 

 fnows had fallen, are not rendered fo cold as 

 they would have been by thofe fnows, if they had 

 remained. And thus the approach of the feve- - 

 rity of winter is retarded ; and the extreme de- 

 gree of its cold is not always at the time we 

 mighr expeift it, viz. when the fun is at its greateft 

 diftance, and the day fhortefl:, but fome time 

 after that period, according to the Engliili pro- 

 verb, which fays, " as ^the day lengthens, the 

 " cold ftrerigthens;" the caufes of refrigeration 

 continuing to operate, while the fun returns too 

 flowly, and his force continues too weak to coun- 

 teradl them. 



During feveral of the fummer months of the 

 year 1783, when the effeft of the fun's rays to 

 heat the earth in thefe northern regions fliouid 

 have been greateft, there exifted a conftant fog 

 over all Europe, and great part of North Ame- 

 rica. This fog was of a permanent nature j it 

 was dry, and the rays of the fun feemed to have 

 little efFed towards difUpating it, as they eafily 

 do a moift fog, arifing from water. Tht-y were 

 indeed rendered io faint in pafTing through it 

 that when colIe(5led in the focus of a burning 

 gUfs, they wpuld fcarce kindle brown paper. 



B b 4 'of 



