EXTRACTS — FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 351 



pd of January, the boys went into the Delaware to bathe. The 

 winter of 1797 was intensely cold. The mercury frequently sunk 

 from 10° to 13° below 0. A gill of brandy was put into a saucer, 

 and placed in an open lot north of the city, on the 9th of Janua- 

 ry, and a ring of ice formed round the edge an inch broad. A 

 gill of water, placed near, froze solid in ten minutes. The winter 

 of 1815 was very cold, and fuel scarce. Oak wood sold at from 

 twelve to fourteen dollars a cord. The winter of 1821 was ex- 

 cessively cold. The mercury, several times, fell to 10° below 

 zero. On the 24th of January, three cows froze to death near 

 the city. The Cincinnati Republican, after alluding to the snow 

 !;torm experienced there on the 4th, 5th and 6th of this month, as 

 the most severe that had visited the south part of Ohio for several 

 r^ears, gives, from old files of papers and documents in the pos- 

 session of the editor, some account of the great New-England 

 now storms of the last century. Among these, the tempest of 

 717, known in history and tradition, as The Great Snow, is men- 

 ioned. The weather was mild until the beginning of Februarys 

 »ut on the 18th of that month, the storm commenced, and con- 

 inued, with short intervals, for nearly a week. The northeast 

 vind, in fierce gusts, drove the descending snow into drifts that 

 ;bliterated the roads, covered the fences, and in some places, even 

 ihe buildings. 



j In Boston, the snow lay in the street six feet deep. Multitudes 

 i.f animals perished in the drifts. A letter from John Winthrop, 

 f New-London, to Cotton Mather, says : "We lost at the island 

 nd farms, about 1100 sheep, besides some cattle and horses in- 

 erred in the snow ; and it was very strange, that eight days after 

 he storm, the tenants at Fisher's Island, pulled out of the ruins, 

 00 sheep, out of one snow bank in a valley, where the snow 

 'ad drifted on them sixteen feet, and found three of them alive 

 *i the drift, which had lain on them all that time, and kept them- 

 felves alive by eating the wool off the others, that lay dead by 

 ^em. As soon as they were taken out of the drift, they shed 

 heir own fleeces, and are now alive and fat." The winter of 

 '741 was intensely cold. Deer were found dead in the woods, 

 Jid some even ventured to the farmers' houses and fed on hay with 

 he cattle. In January, 1780, wood sold in the village of Wor- 

 5ster, Massachusetts, at sixty dollars a cord. The roads were 

 ) blocked up with snow, that no fuel could be brought from the 

 )rest. The snow was four feet and a half deep in the woods on 

 level. Fences and low buildings were buried beneath the drifts ; 

 id the inhabitants of contiguous houses, reached each other 

 irough arches hollowed under the snow banks. The sufferings 

 f the people of New-England, especially in the small villages, 

 ere very great. 



