WINTER OF 1784-5. ^75 



exactly together, so that, for one night at least, the cold at 

 Newton was eighteen degrees less than at Selborne, and, 

 through the whole frost, ten or twelve degrees ;* and, indeed, 

 when we came to observe consequences, we could readily 

 credit this, for all my laurustines, bays, ilexes, arbutuses, 

 cypresses, and even my Portugal laurels and, which occasions 

 more regret, my fine sloping laurel hedge, were scorched up, 

 while, at Newton, the same trees have not lost a leaf! 



We had steady frost on the twenty-fifth, when the thermo- 

 meter, in the morning, was down to ten with us, and at Newton 

 only to twenty-one. Strong frost continued till the thirty-first, 

 when some tendency to thaw was observed, and by January 

 the third, 1 785, the thaw was confirmed, and some rain fell. 



A circumstance that I must not omit, because it was new 

 to us, is, that on Friday, December the tenth, being bright 

 sunshine, the air was full of icy spicula, floating in all direc- 

 tions, like atoms in a sunbeam let into a dark room. We 

 thought them, at first, particles of the rime falling from ray 

 tall hedges, but were soon convinced to the contrary, by 

 making our observations in open places where no rime could 

 reach us. Were they watery particles of the air frozen as 



* The Rev. Mr Bree, of Allesley Rectory, made similar observations in 

 the years 1830 and 1831. He says, " I have elsewhere observed, in the 

 year 1830, that the effects of the frosty nights on trees seemed to differ 

 according to the circumstances, and to be most destructive in lower 

 situations. Several instances of the same kind presented themselves to 

 my notice this season, during the frosts which prevailed in the month of 

 May. The gooseberries and currants were in some cases much injured 

 in gardens which lay low, while those in more elevated situations escaped 

 unhurt. Many of our native plants were cut off, as equisetum arvense, 

 aspidium filix mas. and aculeatum scilla nutansj &c. all of them lovers 

 of low ground. But not only were the late frosts most destructive in low 

 situations, they seem also to have had a much more injurious effect on 

 vegetation within a few feet of the surface of the ground than they had 

 as many yards above it. And of this I was struck with a remarkable 

 instance in a wood in this neighbourhood, which consists chiefly of oak. 

 For the space of several acres, I observed the opening foliage of the under- 

 wood oak, about seven or eight feet from the ground, to be entirely cut off 

 by the frost, though the bushes were, of course, much sheltered by the 

 overshadowing boughs of the poles and trees above them ; while, contrary 

 to what might be expected, the foliage of the poles and trees themselves, 

 which were exposed to the atmosphere, but elevated some yards above the 

 underwood, remained unaffected. In the case, also, of single oak trees, in 

 other situations, I observed the foliage of the lower boughs to be cat 

 off by the frost, and the head of the higher branches to br unimpaired " 



