MUSK-RATS AND SQUIRRELS. 79 



First, let us glance at the subject of our climate as it is, 

 and as it was some two centuries ago. Kalm says that, 

 " desirous of hearing from the old Swedes, who have lived 

 longest in this country, and have been inhabitants of this 

 place " (Raccoon, in Swedesboro, Southern New Jersey) 

 " during the whole time of the change mentioned, whether 

 the present state of the weather was in some particulars 

 remarkably different from that which they felt in their 

 younger years, the following is an account which they 

 all unanimously gave me in answer to this question : 



" The winter came sooner formerly than it does now 

 (1749). Mr. Isaac Morris, a wealthy merchant, . . . con- 

 firmed this by a particular account. His father, one of 

 the first English merchants in this country, observed 

 that in his younger years (about 1690), the river Delaware 

 was commonly covered with ice about the middle of No- 

 vember, old style, so that the merchants were obliged to 

 bring down their ships in great haste, before that time, 

 for fear of their being obliged to lie by all winter. On 

 the contrary, this river seldom freezes over at present be- 

 fore the middle of December, old style. 



" It snowed much more in winter, formerly, than it 

 now does (1749) ; but the weather in general was likewise 

 more constant and uniform, and when the cold set in it 

 continued to the end of February or till March, old style, 

 when it commonly began to grow warm. At present it 

 is warm, even the very next day after a severe cold, 

 and sometimes the weather changes several times a 

 day. 



" Most of the old people here were of opinion that 

 spring came much later at present than formerly, and that 

 it was now much colder in the latter end of February, 

 and the whole month of March, than when they were 

 young. Formerly the fields were as green and the air as 



