LETTER LXP 



TO THE SAME 



THERE were some circumstances attending the remark- 

 able frost in January -, 1776, so singular and striking, that a 

 short detail of them may not be unacceptable. 



The most certain way to be exact will be to copy the 

 passages from my journal, which were taken from time to 

 time, as things occurred. But it may be proper previously 

 to remark that the first week in January was uncommonly 

 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 ; 2 and 

 hence dry autumns are seldom followed by rigorous 

 winters. 



January 7th. Snow driving all the day, which was 

 followed by frost, sleet, and some snow, till the i2th, when 

 a prodigious mass overwhelmed all the works of men, 

 drifting over the tops of the gates and filling the hollow 

 lanes. 



On the i4th the writer was obliged to be much abroad ; 

 and thinks he never before or since has encountered such 

 rugged Siberian weather. Many of the narrow roads were 

 now filled above the tops of the hedges ; through which 

 the snow was driven into most romantic and grotesque 



1 In the first edition both this and the preceding letter are numbered LX1. 

 and it has been deemed advisable to adhere to Gilbert White's numbering. 

 [R. B. S.] 



2 The autumn preceding January 1768 was very wet, and particularly the 

 month of September, during which there fell at Lyndon, in the county of Rutland , 

 six inches and a halfot rain. And the terrible long frost in 1739-40 set in after 



a rainy season, and when the springs were very high. [G. W.] 



192 



