THE LONDON FOG. 77 
pletely, if never before. Milton speaks of the ‘palpable obscure.’ 
have had a London fog in his mind, when he described 
the flight of the cursed angel through the misty, murky air. Fi- 
nally we reached home in safety, fully appreciating what we had 
been through. The next day the papers were full of it, and, 
strange to say, reported but few accidents. Some women actually 
spent the whole night in the streets, afraid to stir, and no police- 
man, or watch, could be bribed to guide them home. H. passed 
quite a number clinging to the rails of Charing-Cross Hotel, and 
an hour afterwards, on his return, they were still there, and there, 
the paper said, the morning found them.” 
That the foregoing description of this remarkable feature of the 
meteorology of London is not at all exaggerated, appears from 
the account of many of the more noteworthy fogs recorded in 
Howard’s “Climate of London.” That authority mentions fogs, 
in the forenoon, of such density that drivers could not see their 
horses’ heads; and in the evening of such opacity that “* the most 
brilliant gaslight could scarcely penetrate the gloom.” 
Describing a very thick fog occurring in November, 1828, and 
remarking upon its physiological effects, the author says : — 
“It began to thicken very much about half-past twelve o'clock, 
from which time, till nearly two, the effect was most distressing, 
making the eyes smart, and almost suffocating those who were in 
the street, particularly asthmatic persons. ..... - n the great 
thoroughfares, the hallooing of coachmen and drivers to avoid 
each other, seemingly issuing from the opaque mass in which they 
were enveloped, was calculated to awaken all the caution of riders, 
as well as of pedestrians who had to cross the streets. 
These vaporous visitations are commonly very limited in extent. 
Often while the city is in more than midnight obscurity, and men 
and horses are groping their invisible way, step by step, only four 
or five miles from town the sky is unclouded and the sun shining 
brilliantly. The authority before referred to, records :— 
“The fog of Wednesday (Dec. 31, 181 7) seems to have been con- 
fined to the metropolis and the immediate vicinity. No further 
northward than the back of Euston Square, the weather was clear 
and even bright. A gentleman, who came to London from Enfield, 
Saw no fog till he approached London. Southward of London, 
it extended as far as Clapham, and it was rather worse in some 0 
the environs than in the metropolis itself. Upon an average, ten 
feet was the distance at which objects ‘became invisible, out of 
q Within doors it was impossible to read without a candle. 
But while this fog was thus limited at London; there was a sim- 
