264 NATURAL HISTORY 



as things occurred. But it may be proper previously to re- 

 mark 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 ; f and hence dry au- 

 tumns 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 12th, when a pro- 

 digious 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 roost- 

 ing-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 compelled by hunger ; being conscious, 

 poor animals, that the drifts and heaps treacherously betray 

 their footsteps, and prove fatal to numbers of them. 



From the 14th the snow continued to increase, and began 

 to stop the road waggons and coaches, which could no longer 

 keep on their regular stages ; and especially on the western 

 roads, where the fall appears to have been deeper than in the 

 south. The company at Bath, that wanted to attend the 

 Queen's birth-day, were strangely incommoded : many car- 

 riages of persons, who got in their way to town from Bath as 

 far as Marlborough, after strange embarrassments, here met 

 with a ne plus ultra. The ladies fretted, and offered large 

 rewards to labourers, if they would shovel them a track to 



f 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 indies and an half of rain. And the terrible long frost of 

 1730-40 set in after a rainy season, and when the springs were very high. 



