VOL. XXVI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TBANSACTIONS. 535 



with them ; then agreed with them ; and soon after veered about to the easterly 

 and northerly, as it did with them. And I further observe also, that when the 

 winds agreed in both places, my notes show the wind to have been of some 

 force here. 



As to the effects of the frost on fluids, the waters we may easily imagine 

 were the first things that felt them ; and these were in many places frozen to an 

 extraordinary depth ; though I hardly believe equal to the frost in 1 683 ; of which 

 we have a sufficient instance in the river Thames, the waters being so frozen, 

 that above bridge many booths were erected, fires made, and meat dressed ; 

 and on January 10, l684, I saw a coach and two horses drive over the river 

 into Southwark, and back again, a great number of people accompanying it. 

 But this last winter the case was very different ; several people crossed the 

 Thames at some distance above the bridge ; but that was only towards low 

 water, when the great flakes of ice that came down stopped one another at 

 the bridge, till they made one continued bed of ice from thence almost to the 

 Temple ; but when the flood came, the ice broke, and was all carried with the 

 current up the river. The like happened between Westminster and Lambeth, 

 a little above Whitehall. As for other waters, they also had their share ; espe- 

 cially where they lay exposed to the north and north easterly winds. Nay, the 

 sea-waters themselves escaped not, but were covered with ice in many places 

 near the shore, in harbours, and where they lay calm and still. Of this I 

 have already mentioned an instance in the harbour of Copenhagen, and the 

 sea between Denmark and Schonen ; and in a letter from Dr. Newton, her 

 Majesty's envoy at Florence, he tells me, the sea was frozen both on the coast 

 of Genoa and Leghorn. And similar accounts are from many parts of Germany. 



These effects I am apt to think the waters felt not only in England, Denmark, 

 Germany, France, and Italy ; but in all the northern world also, excepting 

 Scotland, Ireland, and probably some other islands, or places near the sea ; 

 though even some of these appear to have been great sufferers too. This uni- 

 versality of the frost, I suspect from the multitudes of divers kinds of birds 

 (utter strangers to these parts, and many of them inhabitants of the northern 

 colder countries) which were seen and killed in many parts of England. In 

 our Essex marshes, near us, we had many wild swans, brent geese, many of 

 the rarer gull kind, and divers other sorts of birds, utter strangers to these 

 parts. 



The effects of the frost on animals, were also very severe. We are told how 

 animals suffered, both in Germany and other places ; that the fresh water 

 fish were every where killed ; and that a vast destruction befel their small birds. 

 Nay some did not hesitate to affirm, that they saw birds, as they flew along. 



