376 The Natural History of Selborne 



day the wind was so keen that persons of robust constitutions 

 could scarcely endure to face it. The Thames was at once so 

 frozen over both above and below bridge that crowds ran about on 

 the ice. The streets were now strangely encumbered with snow, 

 which crumbled and trod dusty ; and, turning grey, resembled 

 bay-salt ; what had fallen on the roofs was so perfectly dry that, 

 from first to last, it lay twenty-six days on the houses in the city ; 

 a longer time than had been remembered by the oldest house- 

 keepers living. According to all appearances we might now have 

 expected the continuance of this rigorous weather for weeks to 

 come, since every night increased in severity ; but, behold, without 

 any apparent cause, on the ist of February a thaw took place, and 

 some rain followed before night, making good the observation 

 above, that frosts often go off as it were at once, without any 

 gradual declension of cold. On the 2nd of February the thaw 

 persisted ; and on the 3rd swarms of little insects were frisking 

 and sporting in a court-yard at South Lambeth, as if they had felt 

 no frost. Why the juices in the small bodies and smaller limbs 

 of such minute beings are not frozen is a matter of curious 

 inquiry. 



Severe frosts seem to be partial, or to run in currents ; for at the 

 same juncture, as the author was informed by accurate correspond- 

 ents, 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 1 8. 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 turnips came 

 forth little injured. The laurels and laurustines were somewhat 

 damaged, but only in hot aspects. No evergreens were quite 

 destroyed ; and not half the damage sustained that befel 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 neighbour's 



