COLD. 



741 



Gold. split to pieces before morning, not being able to with- 

 ^^'V " stand the expansive force of the inclosed ice. 

 Effect of The air is filled with innumerable particles of ice, very 

 theiros'on sharp and angular, and plainly perceptible to the naked 

 the plawes e y e _ J have several times, thi- winter, tried to make ob- 

 servations of some celestial bodies, particularly the im- 

 mersions of the satellites of Jupiter, with reflecting and 

 refracting telescopes ; but the metals and glasses, by that 

 time I could fix them to the object, were covered a quar- 

 ter of an inch thick with ice, and thereby the object ren- 

 dered indistinct, so that it is not without great difficul- 

 ties that observations can be taken. 



Bottles of strong beer, brandy, strong brine, spirits of 

 wine, set out in the open air for three or four hours, 

 freeze to solid ice. I have tried to get the sun's refrac- 

 tion here t<> every degree above the horizon, with Elton's 

 quadrant, but to no purpose, for the spirits froze almost 

 as soon as brought into open air. 



The frost is never out of the ground, how deep we 

 cannot be certain. We have dug down 10 or 12 feet, 

 and found the earth hard frozen in the two summer 

 months ; and what moisture we find five or six feet down, 

 ii white like ice. 



The waters or rivers near the sea where the the cur- 

 rent of the tide flows strong, do not freeze above 9 or 10 

 feet deep. 



All the waters we use for cooking, brewing, &c. is 

 melted snow and ice. No spring is yet found free from 

 freezing, though dug never so deep down. 



All waters inland are frozen fast by the beginning of 

 October, and continue so till the beginning of May. 



The walls of the house we live in are of stone, two 

 feet thick ; the windows very small, with thick wooden 

 ihuttere, which are close shut 18 hours every day in the 

 winter. There are cellars under the house, wherein we 

 put our wines, brandy, strong beer, butter, cheese, &c. 

 Four large fires are made in great stoves, built on pur- 

 pose, every day. As soon as the wood is burnt down to 

 a coal, the tops of the chimneys are close stopped with an 

 iron cover ; this keeps the heat within the house, (though 

 at the same time the smoke makes our heads ache, and is 

 rery offensive and unwholesome); notwithstanding which, 

 in four or five hours after the fire is out, the inside of the 

 walls of our houses and bed-places will be two or three 

 inches thick with ice, which is every morning cut away 

 with a hatchet. Three or four times a day we make iron 

 hot of 24 pounds weight red-hot, and hang them up in 

 the windows of our apartments. I have a good fire in 

 my room the major part of 24 hours, yet all this will not 

 preserve my beer, wine, ink, &c. from freezing. 



For our winter dress, we make use of three pair of 

 locks of coarse bl nketing or dufficld for the feet, with 

 a pair of deer skin shoes over them ; two pair of thick 

 English stockings, and a pair of cloth stockings upon 

 them ; breeches lin.-d with flannel ; two or three English 

 jackets, and a fur or leather gown over them ; a large bea- 

 ver cap, double, to come over the face and shoulders, and 

 a clth of blanketing under the chin ; with yarn gloves, 

 and a large pair of beaver mittings hanging down from 

 the shoulders before, to put our hands in, which reach 

 up as high as our elbows ; yet notwithstanding this warm 

 cloaihing, almost every day, some of the men that stir 

 abroad, if any wind blows from the northward, are dread- 

 fully frozen ; some have their arms, hands, and face 

 blitered and frozen in a terrible manner, the skin coming 

 off oon after they enter a warm house, and some have 

 lost their tors. Now their lying-in for the cure of these 

 frozen parti, brings on the scurvy in a lamentable man- 

 lier. Many have died of it, and few are free from that 



distemper. I have procured them all the helps I could, 

 from the diet this country affords in winter, such as fresh 

 fish, panridges, broths, &c. and the doctors have used 

 their utmost skill in vain ; for I find nothing will pre- 

 vent that distemper from being mortal, but exercise and 

 stirring abroad. 



Coronas and parhelia, commonly called Halo's, and 

 mock-suns, appear frequently about the sun and moon, 

 here. They are seen once or twice a week about the 

 sun, and once or twice a month about the moon, for four 

 or five months in winter, several coronx of different dia- 

 meters appearing at the same time. 



I have seen five or six parallel coronoe concentric with 

 the sun several times in winter, being forthe most part very 

 bright, and always attended with parhelia or mock-suns. 

 The parhelia are always accompanied with coronse, if 

 the weather is clear ; and continue for several days to. 

 gether, from the sun rising to his setting. These rings are 

 of various colours, and about forty or fifty degrees in 

 diameter. 



The frequent appearance of these phenomena in thil 

 frozen clime seems to confirm Descartes's hypothesis, who 

 supposes them to proceed from ice suspended in the air. 



The aurora borealis is much oftener seen here than in 

 England ; seldom a night passes in winter free from 

 their appearance. They shine with a surprising bright- 

 ness, darkening all the stars and planets, and covering 

 the whole hemisphere : their tremulous motion from all 

 parts, the beauty, and lustre, are much the same as in the 

 northern parts of Scotland and Denmark. 



The dreadful long winters here may almost be com- 

 pared to the polar parts, where the absence of the sun 

 continues for six months ; the air being perpetually chill- 

 ed and froztn by the northerly winds in winter, and the 

 cold fogs and mists obstructing the sun's beams in the 

 short summer we have here ; for notwithstanding the 

 snow and ice is then dissolved in the low lands and plains, 

 yet the mountains are perpetually covered with bnow, 

 and incredible large bodies of ice continue in the adja- 

 cent seas. 



If the air blows from the southern parts, the air is 

 tolerably warm, but very cold when it comes from the 

 northward : and it seldom blows otherwise than between 

 the north-east and north-west, except in the two sum- 

 mer months, when we have, for the major part, light 

 gales between the ea-t and the north, and calms. 



The northerly winds being so extremely cold, is owing 

 to the neighbourhood of high mountains, whose tops are 

 perpetually covered with snow, which exceedingly chills 

 the air passing over them. The fogs and mists that are 

 brought here from the polar parts in winter, appear to 

 the naked eye in icicles innumerable, as small as fine hairs 

 or threads, and pointed as sharp as needles. Thfhc ici- 

 cles lodge in our clothes ; and, if our faces or hands be 

 uncovered, they presently raise blisters as white as a li- 

 nen cloth, and as hard as horn. Yet if we immediately 

 turn our backs to the weather, and can bear our hand 

 out of our mitten, and with it rub the blistered part lor 

 a small time, we sometimes bring the skin to its former 

 state : if not, we make our way to a fire, and get warm 

 water, wherewith we bathe it, and thereby dissipate the 

 humours raised by the frozen air; otherwise the skin 

 would be off in a short time, with much hot, serous, wa- 

 tery matter coming from under along with the xkm ; iid 

 this happens to some almost every time they go abroad 

 for five or six months in the winter, so extremely cold is 

 the air when the wind blows any thing strong. 



It is not a little surprising to many, that such extreme 

 cold should be felt in these parts of America, more than 



CoiJ. 



