LETTER CVI. 

 To THE Honourable Daines Barrington. 



There were some circumstances attending the 

 remarkable frost in January 1776, so singular and 

 striking, that a short detail of them may not be un- 

 acceptable. 



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 it 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 rig- 

 orous winters. 



January yth. — Snow driving all the day, which 

 was followed by frost, sleet, and some snow, till the 

 1 2th, when a prodigious mass overwhelmed all the 

 works of men, drifting over the tops of the gates, and 

 filling the hollow lanes. 



* 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. 



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