244 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER LXn 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON 



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 yth. — 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 14th 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 



^ 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 an half of rain. And the terrible long 

 frost of 1739-40 set in after a rainy season, and when the springs were 

 very high. 



