METEOROLOGY. 59 



througli the country ; the first marking the very close of 1866, and the he- 

 gmning of 1867, and continuing at intervals till the morning of the 3rd. 

 About mid-day of the 2nd there was a thunderstorm with hail. A rapid 

 thaw took place on the 5th, when the heaviest fall of rain of the year, about 

 2 inches, occurred, preceded and accompanied by a violent storm, which 

 commenced from the E., and veered towards S., and on subsequent days to W., 

 occurring with less force in squalls till the 9th. The second fall of snow began 

 on the 11th, and, recurring every day till the 14th, reached a depth which might 

 average nearly a foot in this district, and was kept unthawed by steady frost 

 till the 20th. In several other parts of England the fall of snow was very 

 much heavier ; in certain parts of Kent and Susses, for instance, it reached 

 8 or 12 feet, and put a stop, there and elsewhere, to traffic by rail as well as 

 road. In Scotland, especially in Perthshire and Forfar, the fall was also 

 very heavy. I observed fine ^parhelia at sunset on the 17th, indicating, 

 probably, frozen vapour in the air. The thaw on the 20th was again accom- 

 panied by a strong gale, veering from E. to S. A full and very interesting 

 account of these twin storms has been given, with an able discussion of a 

 theory of their causation, by our Secretary, Mr. Whitley, in the 7th No. of 

 the Journal of this Institution, to which I would invite attention. It is 

 interesting to notice the distance through which similar weather prevailed at 

 this season : thus, on the 16th there was a snow storm in the United States, 

 the heaviest for 10 years ; 5000 sleighs passed through the gates of the 

 central park at New York. At Brujala, Spain, six third-class passengers 

 were found insensible from cold; and at Naples, on the 14th, there was a 

 hurricane such as no one remembers to have seen there. 



February was chiefly remarkable for mildness ; there was hardly a frosty 

 night, and vegetation advanced rapidly. The mean temperature was 2" above 

 the average. Storms occurred here from the 5th to the 8th, but they were 

 less severe than in other parts of England. 



March was, on the contrary, remarkably cold, 3" or 4° below its mean. 

 At Truro, frost was recorded on six days, and snow on three. At Altarnun 

 there were 23 frosty nights, and the mean temperature of the first three 

 weeks was 36°. The rainfall there was not as it usually is — greater than at 

 Truro and Helston, in which places it was more than one third above the 

 average. In many parts of the country the fall of snow was heavy: at 

 Clifton it was 12 in. deep on the level, on the evening of 19th, — far deeper 

 than the observer had ever known it. 



April was rather damp and ungenial in Cornwall and elsewhere, with 

 about average mean temperature and rainfall. Cuckoo heard here on 28th, 

 the usual date, reported to me as heard at Feock on 23rd, which is early. 



May presented violent contrasts ; the first ten days being unusually 

 warm, the last half more remarkably cold. At Truro there was frost on 

 17th and 24th ; at Altarnun 7 times, the mean temp, of the first week having 

 been 58°. On the 6th Jhere was an unusual rise and fall of the sea in 

 Mount's Bay, with thunder. These great changes were even more marked 

 in other parts of the country, and in the transition period violent thunder- 

 storms occurred. For Greenwich, Mr. Glaisher remarks that for the 42 days 



