in the Temperature of Winter. 35 



together, and then it useth to be very moderate'*'' .,.. Hist, 

 Col. vol. i. 249. 



The writer mentions tke purity and wliolesoineness of 

 tlie air, and the bright, clear, fair vv^eather, which are 

 preferable to the moist, fog-g}^ cold air of Holland and 

 England. This account of the seasons answers well to 

 the state of the weather in our days. 



But I have a further remark to make on the passage 

 Dited from Wood's Prospect. This writer does not say 

 diat Boston Bay and Charles River were annually froze 

 for eight or ten wrecks. His words, if rightly quoted, 

 ire, " For ten or a dozen years, the weather hath held 

 limself to his day, unlocking his icy bays and rivers^ 

 ivhich are never frozen again the same year." These 

 tvords do not authorize Dr. Williams to si^ppose the 

 f/riter meant Boston Bay and Charles River at Boston. 

 He might have had in view more inland bays and rivers; 

 md indeed he must have had ; for it is proved by Win- 

 ihrop's Journal, an unexceptionable authority, that Eos- 

 ion harbor was not always nor general^ froze in tlie 

 iiidst of winter. If Wood then meant inland rivers and 

 u"ms of the sea, his description is exactly true, at this 

 lay. I can aver, from thirty years observation, that 

 Connecticut River at Hartford is a bridge of ice, on an 

 xverage, eight or ten weeks in a winter ; rather more 

 ;han less ; that is, from the beginning or middle of De- 

 :ember to the 20th of February. This is the precise 

 :ime mentioned by Wood; and the passive, instead of 

 favoring Dr. Williams's opinion, is direct evidence that 

 there has been no sensible diminution of cold in Ameri- 

 ca, since its settlement. 



In Winthrop's Journal I find a confirmation of tliis 

 opinion. In page 23, there is a remark like that of 

 Wood before cited, that " ever since the bay has been 

 planted by the English, viz. seven years, it hath been ob- 

 served, that at this day [February 10th, old stile, 1631] 

 the frost hath broken up every year.'"' Fortunately we 

 have in this Journal full proof that the remark was not 

 intended to represent the breaking up of a bridge of ice 

 over the bay of Boston or Charles River. 



