232 WHITE 



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 unknown circumstance strangely overbalance latitude, 

 and render the cold sometimes much greater in the southern 

 than the northern parts of this kingdom. 



The consequences of this severity were that in Hampshire, 

 at the melting of the snow, the wheat looked well, and the tur- 

 nips came forth little injured. The laurels and laurestines 

 were somewhat damaged, but only in hot aspects. No ever- 

 greens were quite destroyed ; and not Half the damage sus- 

 tained that befell in January 1768. Those laurels that were 

 a little scorched on the south sides were perfectly untouched 

 on their north sides. The care taken to shake the snow day 

 by day from the branches seemed greatly to avail the author's 

 evergreens. A neighbor's laurel-hedge, in a high situation, 

 and facing to the north, was perfectly green and vigorous ; and 

 the Portugal laurels remained unhurt. 



As to the birds, the thrushes and blackbirds were mostly 

 destroyed ; and the partridges, by the weather and poachers, 

 were so thinned that few remained to breed the following year. 



NOTES 



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 1 739-40 

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



2 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 below zero, viz., thirty- 

 four degrees below the freezing point. 



The thermometer used at Selborne was graduated by Benjamin Martin. 

 G. W. 



LETTER LXIII 



As the frost in December 1784 was very extraordinary, you, 

 I trust, will not be displeased to hear the particulars ; and 

 especially when I promise to say no more about the severities 

 of winter after I have finished this letter. 



