NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 229 



By the I4th January the snow was entirely gone ; the tur- 

 nips emerged not damaged at all, save in sunny places ; the 

 wheat looked delicately, and the garden plants were well pre- 

 served ; for snow is the most kindly mantle that infant vege- 

 tation can be wrapped in : were it not for that friendly meteor 

 no vegetable life could exist at all in northerly regions. Yet 

 in Sweden the earth in April is not divested of snow for more 

 than a fortnight before the face of the country is covered with 

 flowers. 



NOTE 



1 At the same time the snow fell so fast and in such quantity, and lay 

 so long, that all the thick shrubs were bent to the ground with its weight, 

 and unless the snow was constantly shaken off the branches they per- 

 ished. G. C. D. 



LETTER LXII 



THERE 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 pas- 

 sages 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 perfectly 

 glutted and chilled with water ; l 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 I2th, when a prodigious 

 mass overwhelmed all the works of men, drifting over the tops 

 of the gates and filling the hollow lanes. 



On the 1 4th 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 



