COLD WINTERS. 133 



will suffice to examine his statement respecting the actual 

 temperature in particular winters, considering them always 

 with due reference to what he says as to their exceptional 

 character. 



Take for instance his account of the frost in January, 

 1768. He says that, for the short time it lasted, this frost 

 'was the most severe that we had then known for many 

 years, and was remarkably injurious to evergreens.' ' The 

 coincidents attending this short but intense frost,' he pro- 

 ceeds, after describing his vegetable losses, ' were, that the 

 horses fell sick with an epidemic distemper, which injured 

 the winds of many and killed some ; that colds and coughs 

 were general among the human species ; that it froze under 

 people's beds for several nights ; that meat was so hard 

 frozen that it could not be spitted, and could not be secured 

 but in cellars, &c.' On the 3rd of January a thermometer 

 within doors, in a close parlour, where there was no fire, fell 

 in the night to 20 ; on the 4th to 18 ; and on the 7th to 

 17^ degrees, ' a degree of cold which the owner never since 

 saw in the same situation.' The evidence from the thermo- 

 meter is unsatisfactory, because we do not know how the 

 parlour was situated. But there is reason for supposing 

 that in the bitterest winters known during the last thirty 

 or forty years, a greater degree of cold than that of January, 

 1768, has been experienced in England. 



The frost of January, 1776, was also regarded as remark- 

 able, and an account of it will therefore enable us to judge 

 what was the ordinary winter weather of the last century. 



In the first place, White notices that ' the first week of 

 January, 1776, was very 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 ; and hence dry autumns are seldom 

 followed by rigorous winters.' On the i4th, after a week of 

 frost, sleet, and snow, which after the 1 2th 'overwhelmed 

 all the works of men, drifting over the tops of gates, and 



