THE BEACH IN WINTER 81 



temporarily at least, of those who say the climate 

 is changing and is much milder than when they 

 were young. Then, according to these wise ones, 

 snow came regularly at Thanksgiving and there 

 was sleighing until the end of March. Meteoro- 

 logical records kept for many years show that 

 mild winters and severe winters occurred a gen- 

 eration ago as they do today, and that the snow- 

 fall has varied irregularly. The average snow- 

 fall in Boston for the winter is 44 inches, but in 

 the winter of 1873-4 it was more than twice 

 this, or 96.4 inches, a little over eight feet. Two 

 years later it was 5.3 inches, the least on record. 

 The winters of 1886-7, of 1903-4 and of 

 1919—20 were severe winters with a snowfall of 

 73 inches each year, while in 1888-9, 1900-1, 

 1908-9 and 1912-13 it was only 20 inches or 

 less. That the arrival of snow did not average 

 earlier a generation or more ago is shown by the 

 fact that the average amount of snowfall up to 

 December in twenty-one years from 1871 to 

 1892 was 1.8 inches, while in the twenty-two suc- 

 ceeding winters up to 1913, it was 1.9 inches. 

 In the same way if we delve into more ancient 



