388 NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER LXII. 



TO THE SAME. 



THERE were some circumstances attending the remark- 

 able frost in January, 1776, so singular and striking, that 

 a short detail of them may not be unacceptable. 



The most certain way to be exact will be to copy the 

 passages from my journal, which were taken from time 

 to time as things occurred. But it may be proper pre- 

 viously to remark, that the first week in January was 

 uncommonly wet, and drowned with vast rains from 

 every quarter: from whence may be inferred, as there 

 is great reason to believe is the case, that intense frosts 

 seldom take place till the earth is perfectly glutted and 

 chilled with water 1 ; and hence dry autumns are seldom 

 followed by rigorous winters. 



January 7th. Snow driving all the day, which was 

 followed by frost, sleet, and some snow, till the 32th, 

 when a prodigious mass overwhelmed all the works of 

 men, drifting over the tops of the gates and filling the 

 hollow lanes. 



On the 14th the writer was obliged to be much 

 abroad ; and thinks he never before or since has en- 

 countered such rugged Siberian weather. Many of the 

 narrow roads were now filled above the tops of the 

 hedges ; through which the snow was driven into most 

 romantic and grotesque shapes, so striking to the ima- 

 gination as not to be seen without wonder and pleasure. 

 The poultry dared not to stir out of their roosting 

 places ; for cocks and hens are so dazzled and con- 



1 The autumn preceding January, 1768, was very wet, and particu- 

 larly the month of September, during which there fell at Lyndon, in the 

 county of Rutland, six inches and a half of rain. And the terrible long 

 frost in 1739-40 set in after a rainy season, and when the springs were 

 very high. 



