Travels Through North America 



by the winds, is exceedingly variable. Southerly 

 winds are productive of heat, northerly of cold, and 

 easterly of rain; whence it is no uncommon thing 

 for the thermometer to fall many degrees in a very 

 few hours; and, after a warm day to have such 

 severe cold as to freeze over a river a mile broad in 

 one night's time.* In summer there are frequent 

 and violent gusts, with thunder and lightning; but 

 as the country is very thinly inhabited, and most of 

 the gentry have electrical rods to their houses, they 

 are not attended with many fatal accidents. Now 

 and then, indeed, some of the negroes lose their 

 lives; and it is not uncommon in the woods to see 

 trees torn and riven to pieces by their fury and vio- 

 lence. A remarkable circumstance happened some 

 years ago at York, which is well attested: a person 

 standing at his door during a thunder gust, was un- 

 fortunately killed; there was an intermediate tree 

 at some distance, which was struck at the same time; 

 and when they came to examine the body they found 

 the tree delineated upon it in miniature. Part of 

 the body was livid, but that which was covered by 

 the tree was of its natural colour.f 



I believe no country has more certainly proved 



* On the iQth of December, 1759, being upon a visit to Colonel 

 Washington, at Mount Vernon, upon the river Potomac, where 

 the river is two miles broad, I was greatly surprised to find it en- 

 tirely frozen over in the space of one night, when the preceding day 

 had been mild and temperate. 



f I have related this circumstance upon the authority of the 



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