266 NATURAL HISTORY 



Selborne to 7, 6, 10 ; and on the 31st of January, just before 

 sunrise, with rime on the trees and on the tube of the glass, 

 the quicksilver sunk exactly to zero, being 32 degrees below 

 the freezing point : but by eleven in the morning, though in 

 the shade, it sprung up to 16| g a most unusual degree of 

 cold this for the south of England ! During these four nights 

 the cold was so penetrating that it occasioned ice in warm 

 chambers and under beds ; and in the day the wind was so 

 keen that persons of robust constitutions could scarcely en- 

 dure to face it. The Thames was at once so frozen over both 

 above and below bridge that crowds ran about on the ice. 

 The streets were now strangely incumbered with snow, which 

 crumbled and trod dusty ; and, turning grey, resembled bay- 

 salt ; what had fallen on the roofs was so perfectly dry that, 

 from first to last, it lay twenty-six days on the houses in the 

 city ; a longer time than had been remembered by the oldest 

 housekeepers living. According to all appearances we might 

 now have expected the continuance of this rigorous weather 

 for weeks to come, since every night increased in severity ; 

 but behold, without any apparent cause, on the 1st of February 

 a thaw took place, and some rain followed before night ; 

 making good the observation above, that frosts often go off as 

 it were at once, without any gradual declension of cold. On 

 the 2d of February the thaw persisted ; and on the 3d swarms 

 of little insects were frisking and sporting in a court-yard at 

 South Lambeth, as if they had felt no frost. Why the juices 

 in the small bodies and smaller limbs of such minute beings 

 are not frozen is a matter of curious inquiry. 



Severe frosts seem to be partial, or to run in currents ; for, 

 at the same juncture, as the author was informed by accurate 

 correspondents, at Lyndon in the county of Rutland, the 

 thermometer stood at 19 : at Blackburn, in Lancashire, at 19: 

 and at Manchester at 21, 20, and 18. Thus does some un- 



* At Selborne the cold was greater than at any other place that the 

 author could hear of with certainty : though some reported at the time 

 that at a village in Kent the thermometer fell two degrees Ibelow zero, 

 viz. 34 degrees below the freezing point. 



The thermometer used at Selborne was graduated by Benjamin Martin. 



