NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 275 



well preserved ; for snow is the most kindly mantle that 

 infant vegetation can be wrapped in ; were it not for that 

 friendly meteor no vegetable life could exist at all in 

 northerly regions. Yet in Sweden the earth in April is 

 not divested of snow for more than a fortnight before the 

 face of the country is covered with flowers. 



LETTER LXII. 



THERE were some circumstances attending the remarkable 

 frost in January 1776, so singular and striking, that a short 

 detail of them may not be unacceptable. 



The most certain way to be exact will be to copy the 

 passages from my journal, which were taken from time to 

 time, as things occurred. But it may be proper previously 

 to remark that the first week in January was uncommonly 

 wet, and drowned with vast rains from every quarter : 

 from whence may be inferred, as there is great reason to 

 believe is the case, that intense frosts seldom take place till 

 the earth is perfectly glutted and chilled with water ;* and 

 hence dry autumns are seldom followed by rigorous winters. 



January 7th. Snow driving all the day, which was 

 followed by frost, sleet, and some snow, till the 12th, when a 

 prodigious mass overwhelmed all the works of men, drifting 

 over the tops of the gates and filling the hollow lanes. 



On the 14th the writer was obliged to be much abroad; 



* The autumn preceding January 1768 was very wet, and 

 particularly the month of September, during which there fell at 

 Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, six inches and a-half of rain. And 

 the terrible long frost in 1739-40 set in after a rainy season, and when 

 the springs were very high. 



