Bethel, Maine
1900.
Dec. 3- 31
  I came to Bethel on the 3rd and have spent
the month there excepting one week (22nd to 29th) when I
returned to Cambridge for the Christmas holidays.
  At the time of my arrival there was nearly a foot of snow
which had fallen about a week previously and was so strongly
crusted as to bear one's weight in most places in the
open fields.
  The second snow fall of the season and the only one for
the present month (excepting two trifling squalls or
flurries of an inch or less) began on the evening of the 4th
and lasted through the following night and the greater
part of the next day (5th). About eighteen inches of fine, dry
snow falling on this occasion. It drifted but a little as it came
and save in the most exposed places it clung to the
branches of the trees looking down those of evergreens to
a degree which I have seldom seen equaled elsewhere & which
I was told is unusual here.
  Following this storm we had a week or more of severe
weather the thermometer dropping to 10 degrees below zero on several
occasions at Dr. Gehring's and once, it is said, to 22 degrees below
at the Grand Trunk R. R. station which is probably 200 feet
below the level of our house and in still, cold weather
usually shows a temperature 8 degrees or 10 degrees lower.
  The last twelve days of the month were comparatively
mild the mercury rising to 40 degrees at midday on several
occasions and one or two remaining above the freezing
point during the entire night as well. The snow settled
rapidly during this period and at the close of the month
was reduced to but little more than a foot which was
covered with a thin, icy crust.
  There were only two or three windy days during the month and
the sun shone brightly from a clear sky most of the time
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