COLD WINTERS. 137 



perfectly still, Dolland's glass went down to one degree below 

 zero ! This strange severity of the weather made me very 

 desirous to know what degree of cold there might be in such 

 an exalted and near situation as Newton. We had, there- 

 fore, on the morning of the loth, written to Mr. 1 



and entreated him to hang out his thermometer, made by 

 Adams, and to pay some attention to it, morning and even- 

 ing, expecting wonderful phenomena in so elevated a region, 

 at two hundred feet or more above my house. But, behold ! 

 on the loth, at eleven at night, it was down only to seven- 

 teen, and the next morning at twenty-two, when mine was 

 at ten ! We were so disturbed at this unexpected reverse 

 of comparative cold that we sent one of my glasses up, 

 thinking that of Mr. must somehow be wrongly con- 

 structed. But when the instruments came to be confronted 

 they went exactly together, so that for one night at least the 

 cold at Newton was eighteen degrees less than at Selborne, 

 and through the whole frost ten or twelve degrees ; and in- 

 deed, when we came to observe consequences, we could 

 readily credit this, for all my laurustines, bays, ilexes, 

 arbutuses, cypresses, and even my Portugal laurels and, 

 which occasions more regret, my fine sloping laurel hedge- 

 were scorched up, while at Newton the same trees have not 

 lost a leaf . . . .' One circumstance noted by White, 

 though not bearing specially on the degree of cold which 

 prevailed on this occasion, is very interesting. * I must not 

 omit to tell you,' says White, * that during those two Siberian 

 days my parlour cat was so electric that had a person stroked 

 her and been properly insulated, the shock might have been 

 given to a whole circle of people/ 



White's account of this severe frost bears very signifi- 

 cantly on the theory that our winter weather has undergone 

 a great change. It is obvious, in the first place, that the 

 situation of his thermometers was such that they were 

 likely to show a low temperature as compared with the 

 indications in other places. It is also clear that the ther- 

 mometer he used was trustworthy. If it were one of 



