NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 279 



Selborne to 7, 6, 10; and on the 3ist January, just before sun- 

 rise, with rime on the trees and on the tube of the glass, the 

 quicksilver sunk exactly to zero, being 32 below the freezing 

 point; but by eleven in the morning, though in the shade, it 

 sprang up to i6|,* 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 

 housekeepers 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 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 February 

 the thaw persisted ; and on the 3rd swarms of little insects were 

 frisking and sporting in a courtyard 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 corre- 

 spondents, at Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, the thermo- 

 meter stood at 19 ; at Blackburn, in Lancashire, at 19 ; and at 

 Manchester, at 21, 20, and 18. Thus does some unknown 



* 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 thermometer fell two degrees below zero; viz., thirty-four degrees 

 below the freezing point. 



The thermometer used at Selborne was graduated by Benjamin Martin. 



