136 ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH. 



was regarded a century ago as altogether exceptional. 

 Again, the cold lasted only about three weeks. And it may 

 be doubted whether in actual intensity it even equalled that 

 which was experienced in London and the south of England 

 generally during the first week of 1855. Certainly the 

 evidence afforded by such remarks as I have italicised in 

 the above-quoted passage tends more to prove that winter 

 weather in England a hundred years hence was on the 

 average much like winter at present, than the unusual 

 severity of the weather during about twenty-four days in 

 January, 1776, tends to suggest that a marked change has 

 taken place. 



Similar evidence is afforded by White's remarks respect- 

 ing the severe cold of December, 1784. 



As in January, 1776, so in December, 1784 a week of 

 very wet weather heralded the approach of severe cold. 

 ' The first week of December,' says White, ' was very wet, 

 with the barometer very low. On the 7th, with the baro- 

 meter at 28.5, came on a vast snow, which continued all 

 that day and the next, and most part of the following night : 

 so that by the morning of the 9th the works of men were 

 quite overwhelmed ' (there is something quite Homeric in 

 White's use of this favourite expression), ' the lanes filled so 

 as to be impassable, and the ground covered twelve or 

 fifteen inches without any drifting. In the evening of the 

 9th the air began to be so very sharp that we thought it 

 would be curious to attend to the motions of a thermometer ; 

 we therefore hung out two, one made by Martin and one by 

 Dolland ' (probably Dollond), ' which soon began to show us 

 what we were to expect ; for by ten o'clock they fell to 

 twenty-one, and at eleven to four, when we went to bed. 

 On the loth in the morning the quicksilver of Dolland's 

 glass was down to half a degree below zero and that of 

 Martin's, which was absurdly graduated only to four degrees 

 above zero, sunk quite into the brass guard of the ball, so 

 that, when the weather became most interesting, this was 

 useless. On the loth, at eleven at night, though the air was 



