[Chap. VIII] BEDFORDSHIRE: TURVEY 



119 



temperature ; " after which the indications were change, 

 followed by rain. 



Now, as the 14th was the day of my walk to Bedford and 

 Turvey, I was rather anxious, and when I got up in the 

 morning and saw that the sky was clear, I thought the 

 almanack was wrong, and was glad of it ; but as soon as I 

 began my journey I found the air milder and the roads 

 decidedly softer than the day before, and this soon increased, 

 till by midday there was a regular thaw, which made the 

 roads quite soft, but as there had been no snow not disagree- 

 ably wet. I had, therefore, a very pleasant walk. I dined at 

 Bedford, and reached Turvey before dark. 



For the next six days we were at work laying out the 

 main lines for the survey of the parish, cutting hedges, 

 ranging flags, ascertaining boundaries, and beginning the 

 actual measurements, and every day the frost continued 

 exactly as predicted by Murphy, culminating in the greatest 

 cold on the 20th, after which there was a break. 



I may here state that the rest of the year was very in- 

 accurate, though there were certain striking coincidences. 

 The hottest day was nearly, or quite, correct. In August 

 nine days consecutively were exactly as predicted, and in 

 December the very mild weather and fine Christmas Day was 

 correct. 



But the perfect accuracy of the fourteen consecutive days 

 with the break on one day of an otherwise continuous frost, 

 and that day being fixed on my memory by the circumstance 

 of my having then to walk twenty miles, forced me to the 

 conclusion that there must have been " something in it " — 

 that this could not have been attained by pure guess-work, 

 even once in a year, and though the most striking, it was not 

 by any means the only success. My copy of the almanack 

 disappeared half a century ago, but wishing to refresh my 

 memory of the circumstances, and to fix definitely the year and 

 day of my journey, I applied to the Meteorological Society 

 to lend me the almanack if they possessed it. They very 

 courteously obliged me, sending me the five years, 1838 to 1842, 

 all that ever appeared, bound together. I then found that my 



