314 WEATHER. 



horses as they passed, and greedily devoured 

 what dropped from them ; hares now came into 

 men's gardens, and, scraping away the snow, 

 devoured such plants as they could find. 



On the 22d the author had occasion to go to 

 London through a sort of Laplandian scene, very 

 wild ana 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 exemption 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 11, 7, 6, 6 ; and at Selborne 

 to 7, 6, 10 ; and on the 31st 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 sprung up to IG^ 1 a most unusual degree of 

 cold this for the south of England ! During these 

 four nights the cold was so penetrating that it occa- 

 sioned ice in warm chambers and under beds; and 



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. 34 degrees below 

 the freezing point. 



The thermometer used at Selborne was graduated by 

 Benjamin Martin. 



