274 WINTER OF 1784-& 



LETTER CVII. 



TO THE HON. DA1NES BARRINGTON. 



As the frost in December, 1784, was very extraordinary, 

 you, I trust, will not be displeased to hear the particulars ; and 

 especially when I promise to say no more about the severities 

 of winter, after I have finished this letter. 



The first week in December was very wet, with the 

 barometer very low. On the seventh, with the barometer 

 at twenty-eight five-tenths, came on a vast snow, which 

 continued all that day and the next, and most part of the 

 following night ; so that, by the morning of the ninth, the 

 works of men were quite overwhelmed, the lanes filled so as to 

 be impassable, and the ground covered twelve or fifteen inches 

 without any drifting. la the evening of the ninth, the air 

 began to be so very sharp, that we thought it would be curious 

 to attend to the motions of a thermometer ; we, therefore, 

 hung out two, one made by Martin, and one by Dolland, which 

 soon began to shew us what we were to expect ; for, by ten 

 o'clock, they fell to twenty-one, and at eleven to four, when we 

 went to bed. On the tenth, in the morning, the quicksilver of 

 Dolland's glass was down to half a degree below zero, and 

 that of Martin's, which was absurdly graduated only to four 

 degrees above zero, sunk quite into the brass guard of the 

 ball, so that, when the weather became most interesting, this 

 was useless. On the tenth, at eleven at night, though the air 

 was perfectly still, Dolland's glass went down to one degree 

 below zero ! This strange severity of the weather made me 

 very desirous to know what degree of cold there might be in 

 such an exalted and near situation as Newton. We had, 



therefore, on the morning of the tenth, written to Mr , 



and entreated him to hang out his thermometer, made by 

 Adams, and to pay some attention to it, morning and evening, 

 expecting wonderful phenomena, in so elevated a region, at two 

 hundred feet or more above my house. But, behold ! on the 

 tenth, at eleven at night, it was down only to seventeen, and 

 the next morning at twenty-two, when mine was at ten ! We 

 were so disturbed at this unexpected reverse of comparative 

 local cold, that we sent one of my glasses up, thinking that of 

 Mr i must, somehow, be wrongly constructed. But, 



when the instruments came to be confronted, they went 



