194 THE REV. J. G. WOOD. 



Then there is a description of the American weather. 

 My father, not quite knowing what to expect, made no 

 special preparation for the winter before leaving England, 

 save that he purchased a tolerably large stock of ordinary 

 winter clothing. But he very soon discovered that for all 

 practical purposes this would be well-nigh useless. It 

 might do very well in what is generally considered as a 

 " sharp frost," but for a climate in which the ther- 

 mometer is apt to fall occasionally to some thirty 

 degrees below zero, and in which the wind is given to 

 blow with almost all the force of a hurricane, it soon 

 proved altogether insufficient. So it was necessary to do 

 in America as the Americans did, and purchase clothing 

 better adapted to the vagaries of the thermometer. 



November 12th. We have had a fine specimen of Boston 

 weather. Last night was so warm that I had to take off all the bed- 

 clothes. This morning, about 3.0, I awoke half-frozen. A fierce 

 north-westerly gale was blowing, and literally howling round my 

 room, which exactly faces that quarter. So I had to get up, fasten 

 the window, replace all the clothes, and add the fur rug, and even 

 then could hardly get warm. During the day there were several fierce 



snow and hail storms. In returning from the S 's I half thought 



that both ears would have been frost-bitten, and regretted that I 

 had not put on the travelling cap. . . But, for compensation, 

 such a sky. I certainly never saw the moon before. She was so 

 brilliant that it was barely possible to look at her without being 

 dazzled, while Jupiter blazed with a splendour which he never attains 

 in England. Few stars could be seen, the moon killing them all, 

 and even Sirius and Capella were barely traceable. 



On the 1st of December there is a somewhat similar 

 note, to which is appended a further eulogy of the 

 anthracite, or smokeless coal. I may add, by the way, 



