^8 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. fANNO 1770. 



covered with ice almost half as thick as themselves. Towards the latter end of 

 January, when the cold was so very intense, he carried a half-pint of brandy, 

 perfectly fluid, into the open air, and in less than 1 minutes it was as thick as 

 treacle ; in about 5, it had a very strong ice on the top ; and he believes that in 

 an hour's time it would have been nearly solid. About the beginning of De- 

 cember they began to use spirits of wine for the plumb-line of the quadrant, 

 which would have been evaporated to about half the quantity in a fortnight's 

 time, the spirituous part shooting up the plumb-line and sides of the glass, like 

 coral ; but perfectly white. What remained would then freeze, but not before. 

 At the beginning of the winter Mr. W. hung a small vial with about a tea- 

 spoonful of proof spirits of wine by the thermometer, on the outside of the 

 observatory, and when he had well corked it up, dropped some water on the 

 cx)rk, which was instantly frozen to ice, and thus sealed the vial, in a manner 

 hermetically. This, though it hung all the winter, never froze ; nor, that he 

 could perceive, altered its fluidity in the least. 



It was now almost impossible to sleep an hour together, more especially on 

 very cold nights, without being awakened by the cracking of the beams in the 

 house, which were rent by the prodigious expansive power of the frost. It was 

 very easy to mistake them for the guns on the top of the house, which are 3 

 pounders. But those are nothing to what we frequently hear from the rocks up 

 the country, and along the coast ; these often bursting with a report equal to 

 that of many heavy artillery fired together, and the splinters are thrown to an 

 amazing distance. 



March IQth, it thawed in the sun, for the first time, and on the 26th it 

 thawed in reality. The yard of the factory was that day almost covered with 

 water. After this, it continued to thaw every day about noon when the sun 

 was out; and by the 23d of April, the ground was in many places bare. On 

 the 26th it rained very fast, almost the whole night, which was the first rain we 

 had after October the 3d, 1/68. It was really surprizing next morning to see 

 what an alteration it had made in the appearance of the country. We had now 

 alternately snow and rain, frosts and thaws, as in England ; the grass began to 

 spring up very fast in the bare places, and the gooseberry bushes to put out buds; 

 in short, they began to have some appearance of spring. 



The latter end of April, the hunters began to come home from the partridge 

 tents, in order to prepare for the spring goose season, which is always expected 

 to begin about that time; and is, in truth, the harvest to this part of the world. 

 They not only kill, so as to keep the whole factory in fresh geese for near a 

 month, but to salt as many as afterwards make no inconsiderable part of the 

 year's provision. There are various sorts of the geese, as the grey-goose, the 

 way-way, the brant, the dunter, and several more. The gander of the dunter 



