16 



FROSINONE 



FROST-BITE 



A critical edition was published by Niebuhr in 

 1816, and another by Naber in 1867. 



Frosino'ne ( Frusino of the Volscians ), a town 

 of Italy, 60 miles SE. of Rome by rail, with re- 

 mains of an ancient amphitheatre. Pop. 7018. 



Frost. The term frost is used to describe the 

 condition of bodies containing moisture when their 

 temperature is below 32 F., the freezing-point 

 of water. When the substance in question is the 

 air, everything exposed to its influence, and not 

 otherwise heated passes also below the freezing- 

 point. In no part of the British Isles, within 1000 

 feet of sea-level, is the average temperature at any 

 time of the year below 32 ; and therefore the 

 frosts experienced in Britain, though often lasting 

 several days or even weeks, are essentially sporadic 

 and of the nature of interruptions in the general 

 character of the weather. It may be noted in 

 passing that when severe frosts do occur, covering 

 the rivers and lakes with ice, the weather is usually 

 settled, there being a high barometer and little 

 wind ; so that the air over the British Isles or those 

 pafts of them where the frost prevails is not liable 

 to be mixed with air from the warmer regions above 

 the seas around. Loch Ness is one of the few 

 lakes in Britain never known to freeze : its great 

 depth prevents the cold having time to cool the 

 whole mass of the water even in the longest and 

 severest frosts that have occurred within the memory 

 of man. Other large but shallower lakes, such as 

 Loch Lomond, on the contrary get sufficiently 

 frozen over to bear skaters and curlers during every 

 exceptionally cold winter. A frequent and dis- 

 agreeable effect of frost is the bursting of water- 

 pipes, due to the expansion of water in the act of 

 freezing. The breakage is not usually noticed till 

 a thaw sets in and the water again circulates in the 

 pipe, hence it is sometimes erroneously supposed 

 that the thaw has burst the pipe. 



Local low temperatures are often found in valleys 

 when the air at a little height up is considerably 

 warmer, producing what is known as an ' up-bank 

 thaw.' This is caused by the air chilled by radia- 

 tion from the sides of the hills settling down from 

 its greater weight, and occurs on every night when 

 there is not enough wind to mix the different 

 layers together. In fact, on calm mornings a 

 stream of cold air flows down valleys lik^ their 

 rivers, and often indicates its presence by the fog 

 caused by its coming in contact with the damp air 

 above the watercourses. In choosing sites for 

 houses or gardens a less liability to great cold and 

 damp fogs will be secured by placing them on knolls 

 or a little up the sides of the hill than if they are 

 planted in the bottom of the valley, and thus in the 

 influence of this cold current. A position directly 

 opposite the mouth of a valley is also to be avoided. 



Frost may be present on the ground or on plants 

 when the air is several degrees above the freezing- 

 point. This hoar-frost is due to cooling by radia- 

 tion (see HEAT, p. 609) i.e. to the ground, leaves, 

 &c. radiating their heat away faster than it can 

 be replenished from the air around. Hoar-frost is 

 most liable to occur on clear nights, clouds acting 

 as a screen to check radiation, and is more common 

 in country districts than in towns, where the smoke 

 serves a similar purpose. It is the frost most 

 dangerous to vegetation coming as it does in clear 

 weather when the air is otherwise warm, the days 

 often hot from strong sunshine, and the tissues of 

 the plants full of sap. It may sometimes be fore- 

 told by observing the hygrometer ; if the dew-point 

 (see DEW) is below 32 in the afternoon, hoar-frost 

 may be expected at night. At the same time it is 

 frequently a sign of warm days, as the low dew-point 

 indicates that little moisture is present in the air to 

 check the sun's rays. Hoar-frost being wholly due 



to radiation, it is a common custom to protect 

 plants by spreading some light covering over them, 

 or even by burning leaves, brushwood, &c. to make 

 a smoke of sufficient density to act as a screen. 

 This is usually effectual, but may fail either from 

 the air cooling below 32, in which case the covering 

 is almost useless ; or by injuriously checking the 

 circulation of air and confining a small quantity 

 immediately over the plants, which, getting cooled 

 by contact with the ground below the temperature 

 of the free moving air around, may pass below 32 

 and allow the vegetation to be frost-bitten. 



A well known form of frost, closely allied to hoar- 

 frost, is the crystalline deposit seen when the mois- 

 ture in the air of a warm room condenses on the 

 glass of the window. It takes most beautiful and 

 varied forms, owing to the tendency of ice deposited 

 in this manner to form hexagonal crystals. 



Another form of deposition is fog-crystals, which 

 appear whenever a frosty fog is accompanied by 

 wind, the fog drifting along and depositing spicules 

 of ice on all surfaces exposed to it. As frosty fogs 

 in low-lying districts occur usually in calm weather 

 fog crystals are not often observed there, but are of 

 frequent occurrence on hills, where the driving mists 

 cover all projecting stones, trees, &c., with great 

 masses of loose feathery 'crystals, often reaching a 

 thickness of several feet. Great damage is some- 

 times caused to trees and shrubs by rain falling 

 immediately after frost, before the ground and the 

 air near it has time to thaw. The rain freezes as soon 

 as it touches any objects, and gradually encrusts 

 them with solid ice, until even large branches of 

 trees break down under the weight. For other 

 matters connected with freezing and its effects, 

 see ICE, TEMPERATURE, THERMOMETER, GLACIERS, 

 HAIL, SNOW, FREEZING MIXTURES, &c. 



Lists of the most memorable frosts on record 

 will be found in W. Andrews's Famous Frosts and 

 Frost-fairs in Great Britain (1887), and in C. 

 Walford's paper on ' Famines ' in Journal of the 

 Statistical Society (1878). Fairs were held on the 

 ice on the Thames in 1564, 1607-8, 1620, 1683-84 

 ( especially celebrated ), 1688-89, 1715-16, 1739-40, 

 1788-89, 1813-14. The western parts of the Baltic 

 were frozen, and in most years passable for men 

 and horses, in 1294, 1296, 1306, 1323, 1349, 1402, 

 1459-60, 1548, 1658, 1767. Flanders and Holland 

 were visited by unusually severe frosts in 1468, 

 1544, 1565, 1594, 1622, 1734, and 1785. Besides 

 these, other memorable frosts occurred in the years 

 and countries mentioned in the subjoined table : 



401, 763-4. Seas near Con- 

 stantinople. 



859-60. Mediterranean and 

 Adriatic. 



1035. On Midsummer Day in 

 England. 



1076-77. England. 



1234. Mediterranean. 



1420. Sea near Constantinople. 



1433. Germany. 



1594. Adriatic at Venice. 



1622. Hellespont. 



1670. Rhine frozen. 



161. Austria. 



1693. Italy and Germany. 



3737. Italy and Spain. 



1740. Denmark and Prussia. 



1745. Russia. 



1760. Germany. 



1763. Germany and France. 



1766. Naples, Lisbon, Bavaria, 



and France. 



1767. Italy and North Europe. 

 1783-84. Central Europe. 

 1812. Russia. 



1815. Canada. 



1849. Norway. 



1873. France. 



1888. Blizzard (q.v.) in U.S. 



1895. Great Britain. 



Frost-bite is caused by cold depressing the 

 vitality of a part or the whole of the body. The 

 frost-bitten j>art is at first blue and puffy, from the 

 current of blood through it being much retarded ; 

 then, should the cold be continued, it becomes pallid, 

 and the painful tingling gives place to numbness 

 and insensibility, and finally to actual death or 

 mortification, with a dark livid appearance of the 

 part. Although a sudden violent application of 

 cold may cause death of the tissues, by reducing the 

 temperature to a degree incompatible with animal 

 life, the most common cause of the destructive 

 effects of frost-bite is undoubtedly the excessive 



