138 ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH 



Dollond's it would presumably be a good one, and I do 

 not think that in White's time the trick of marking inferior 

 instruments with the name Doll^nd had come into vogue. 

 But in any case Adams's scientific instruments were excel- 

 lent ; and, as the account shows, the thermometer used by 

 White indicated the same temperature as Adams's. Now, 

 the lowest temperature recorded was only one degree below 

 zero ; and that this was altogether exceptional is shown not 

 only by what White says in the passage I have quoted, but 

 also by his remarking a little later that this frost * may be 

 allowed, from its effects, to have exceeded any since 

 1739-40.' Even this is not all. It would certainly prove 

 beyond dispute that our winters were not milder than those 

 of a century ago ; for a greater degree of cold than that 

 recorded by White in December, 1784, has been more than 

 once experienced in the same part of England during the 

 last forty years. But it seems from a statement in Miller's* 

 ' Gardener's Dictionary,' that the Portugal laurels were 

 untouched in the great frost of 1739-40, which would show 

 that the frost of 1784 was more severe and destructive than 

 that of 1739-40. If this were really so, the frost of 1784 

 was the severest (though owing to its short duration it did 

 not produce the most remarkable effects in the country at 

 large) of any during the periods noted between the years 

 1709 and 1788. On the Continent, the frost of December, 

 1788, was more severe in some places, though rather less 

 severe at Paris, than that of 1 709 ; but I do not know of any 

 records which would enable us to make a direct comparison 

 between the cold in 1709, 1784, and 1788, at any given 

 place in Great Britain. 



It will be well now to take a wider survey and consider 

 some of the most severe winters experienced in Europe 

 generally. 



The winter of 1544 was remarkably severe all over 

 Europe. In Flanders, according to Mezerai, wine froze in 

 casks, and was sold in blocks by the pound weight. The 

 winter of 1608 was also very severe. In the winter of 1709 



