COLD WINTERS. 145 



(if we can judge from the way in which Englishmen have 

 borne Arctic winters), had it not been for the gross negli- 

 gence of the Red Tapists. 



The winter of 1857-58 was rather severer than the 

 average, but not much. The Danube and Russian ports in 

 the Black Sea were frozen over in January, 1858. 



The frost of December, 1860, and January, 1861, was 

 remarkable. The coldest recorded mean temperature for a 

 month in time (not the coldest month), was that for the 

 thirty days ending January 16, 1861, namely, 26 degrees. 

 Mr. Plant remarks that ' the intense cold on Christmas-eve, 

 1860, finds no equal in his records, since January 20, 1838. 

 The thermometer registered 34 degrees of frost, and in 

 the valley of the Rea, five to seven degrees below zero. 

 Strangely enough, Flammarion makes no mention of this 

 bitter winter in his list of exceptionally cold winters. 



The winter of 1864-65 lasted from December to the end 

 of March, all of which four months, Mr. Plant notes, were 

 of the true winter type. The Seine was frozen over at 

 Paris, and people crossed the ice near the Pont des Arts. 



The winter of 1870-71 will always be remembered as 

 that during which the siege of Paris was carried on, and the 

 last scenes of the Franco- Prussian war took place. As 

 Flammarion justly remarks, this winter will be classed 

 among severe winters, because of the extreme cold in 

 December and January (notwithstanding the mild weather 

 of February), and also because of the fatal influence which 

 the cold exercised upon the public health at the close of the 

 war with Germany. ' The great equatorial current/ he pro- 

 ceeds (meaning, no doubt, the winds which blow over the 

 prolongation of the Gulf Stream), * which generally extends 

 to Norway, stopped this year at Spain and Portugal, the 

 prevailing wind being from the north. On the 5th of 

 December there was a temperature of 5 degrees, and on the 

 8th, at Montpellier, the thermometer stood at 17.6 degrees. 

 A second period of cold set in on the 22nd of December, 

 lasting until the 5th of January. In Paris the Seine was 



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