278 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



During these four nights the cold was so penetrating that 

 it occasioned ice in warm chambers and under beds ; and in 

 the day the wind was so keen that persons of robust consti- 

 tutions could scarcely endure to face it. The Thames was 

 at once so frozen over both above and below bridge that 

 crowds ran about on the ice. The streets were now strangely 

 encumbered with snow, which crumbled and trod dusty, 

 and, turning grey, resembled bay-salt ; what had fallen on 

 the roofs was so perfectly dry that, from first to last, it lay 

 twenty-six days on the houses in the city a longer time 

 than had been remembered by the oldest housekeepers 

 living. According to all appearances we might now have 

 expected the continuance of this rigorous weather for weeks 

 to come, since every night increased in severity ; but 

 behold, without any apparent cause, on the 1st February a 

 thaw took place, and some rain followed before night, 

 making good the observation above, that frosts often go off 

 as it were at once, without any gradual declension of cold. 

 On the 2nd February the thaw persisted, and on the 3rd 

 swarms of little insects were frisking and sporting in a 

 courtyard at South Lambeth, as if they had felt no frost. 

 Why the juices in the small bodies and smaller limbs of 

 such minute beings are not frozen is a matter of curious 

 inquiry. 



Severe frosts seem to be partial, or to run in currents ; 

 for at the same juncture, as the author was informed by 

 accurate correspondents, at Lyndon, in the county of Rut- 

 land, the thermometer stood at 19; at Blackburn, in 

 Lancashire, at 19; and at Manchester, at 21, 20, and 

 18. Thus does some unknown circumstance strangely 

 overbalance latitude, and render the cold sometimes much 

 greater in the southern than the northern parts of this 

 kingdom. 



