NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 277 



LETTER LXII. 



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 i2th, when a prodigious mass 

 overwhelmed all the works of men, drifting over the tops of the 

 gates and filling the hollow lanes. 



On the 1 4th 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 ima- 

 gination 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. 



