CV1.] OF SELBORNE. 281 



LETTER CVI. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BAERINGTON. 



THEKE 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 be may proper previously to remark, that the 

 first week in January was uncommonly wet, and drowned with 

 vast rains from every quarter: from whence it 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; 1 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 1 2th, 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 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 com- 

 pelled by hunger ; being conscious, poor animals, that the drifts 



1 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. 



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