322 WINTER OF 1776. 



pavement of the streets could not be touched by the 

 wheels or the horses' feet, so that the carriages ran 

 about without the least noise. Such an exemption from 

 din and clatter was strange, but not pleasant; it seemed 

 to convey an uncomfortable idea of desolation : 



" Ipsa silentia terrent." 



On the twenty- seventh, much snow fell all day, 

 and in the evening the frost became very intense. 

 At South Lambeth, for the four following nights, the 

 thermometer fell to 11, 7, 6, 6; and at Selborne to 

 7, 6, 10; and on the 31st of January, just before 

 sunrise, with rime on the trees, and on the tube of 

 the glass, the quicksilver sunk exactly to zero, being 

 32 degrees below the freezing point ; but by eleven 

 in the morning, though in the shade, it sprung up to 

 1 6^ * 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 consti- 

 tutions 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 trode dusty; and, turning gray, resem- 

 bled 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 



* At Selborne, the cold was greater than at any other place 

 that the author could hear of with certainty ; though some re- 

 ported at the time, that, at a village in Kent, the thermometer 

 fell two degrees below zero, viz. 34 degrees below the freezing 

 point. 



The thermometer used at Selborne was graduated by Benjamin 

 Martin. 



12 



