202 WINTER OF 177G 



LETTEE CVI. 



TO THE SAME. 



THERE were some circumstances attending the remarkable 

 frost of 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 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 fol- 

 lowed 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 fining the hollow lanes. 



On the fourteenth, the writer was obliged to be much 

 abroad : and thinks he never before, or since, has encoun- 

 tered such rugged Siberian weather. Many of the narrow 

 roads are now filled above the tops of the hedges ; through 

 which the snow was driven in 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 the 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 animals, that the drifts and 



* 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 a half of rain. And the terrible long frost in 1739-40, 

 set in after a rainy season, and when the springs were very high. 



