194 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



On the 22nd the author had occasion to go to London 

 through a sort of Laplandian-scene, very wild and grotesque 

 indeed. But the metropolis itself exhibited a still more 

 singular appearance than the country ; for being bedded 

 deep in snow, the pavement of the streets could not be 

 touched by the wheels or the horses' feet, so that the 

 carriages ran about without the least noise. Such an exemp- 

 tion from din and clatter was strange, but not pleasant; 

 it seemed to convey an uncomfortable idea of desolation : 



" Ipsa silentia terrent." 



On the 27th much snow fell all day, and in the evening 

 the frost became very intense. At South Lambeth, for the 

 four following nights, the thermometer fell to n, 7, 6, 6, 

 and at Selborne to 7, 6, 10, and on the 3ist of January ', just 

 before sunrise, with rime on the trees and on the tube of 

 the glass, the quicksilver sunk exactly to zero, being 32 

 degrees below the freezing point ; but by eleven in the 

 morning, though in the shade, it sprang up to I6J, 1 a 

 most unusual degree of cold this for the south of England \ 

 During these four nights the cold was so penetrating that it 

 occasioned ice in warm chambers and under beds ; and in 

 the day the wind was so keen that persons of robust consti- 

 tutions could scarcely endure to face it. The Thames was 

 at once so frozen over both above and below bridge that 

 crowds ran about on the ice. The streets were now 

 strangely encumbered with snow, which crumbled and 

 trod dusty ; and, turning grey, resembled bay-salt : what 

 had fallen on the roofs was so perfectly dry that, from first 

 to last, it lay twenty-six days on the houses in the city ; a 

 longer time than had been remembered by the oldest 

 housekeepers living. According to all appearances we 

 might now have expected the continuance of this rigorous 



1 At Selborne the cold was greater than at any other place that the author 

 could hear of with certainty ; though some reported at the time that at a village 

 in Kent the thermometer fell two degrees below zero, viz. thirty-four degrees 

 below the freezing point. [G. W.] 



The thermometer used at Selborne was graduated by Benjamin Martin. 

 [G. W.] 



