REMARKS, Sec. 



10? 



from England, that arrived in the Delaware, CRmd 

 to Chester on the 11th December, 1681, where she 

 was frozen up the same night, and it is remarked, 

 the passengers remained there all Winter. Wil- 

 liam Penn arrived at New Castle 24th October, 1682,' 

 and in a letter which he wrote to his friends on the 

 16th of August, in the following year, he remarks, 

 that, " from December to the beginning of March w^ 

 had sharp frosty weather, a sky as clear as in Sum- 

 mer, and the air dry, cold, piercing, and hungry. 

 The Winter before was as mild, scarce any ice 

 at all, while this, for a few days, froze up our great 

 river Delaware."* 



Here is some apparent difference in these ac- 

 counts : but the true state of the case may have 

 been, that, although a ship had been frozen up the 

 preceding W^ inter at Chester, yet that the river 

 opened some time afterwards. 



In the year 1714, according to the record of the 

 Swedish mission, the winter was so mild in Phila- 

 delphia, that flowers were seen in the woods in Feb- 

 ruary. Since that time we have experienced occa- 

 sional very mild Winters, as 1789-1790, 1801-1802, 

 and 1805-1806, and some very cold seasons, as in 

 1739-1740, 1779-1780, 1784-1785, 1795-1796, 1804- 

 1805. 



Dr. Rush does not believe that the mean tempe- 

 rature of the air has altered in Pennsylvania, but that 

 the principal change of our climate consists in the heat 

 and cold being less confined, than formerly^ to theii? 



* Prowd's Hist, of Penn. p. 193» 



