320 WINTER OF 1776. 



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 completely 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 

 twelfth, when a prodigious mass overwhelmed all the 

 works of men, drifting over the tops of the gates, and 

 filling the hollow lanes. 



On the fourteenth, 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 imagination, 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 ani- 



* The autumn preceding January, 17#8, 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 sea- 

 son, and when the springs were very high. 



