CVl.] 
OF SELBORNE. 
281 
LETTEE CVL 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRIKGTON. 
There were some circiiinstances attending the remarkable frost 
in January 1776, so singular and striking, that a short detail 
of them may not be unacceptable. 
The most certain way to be exact will be to coj^y the passages 
from my journal, which were taken from time to time as things 
occurred. But it be may proper previously to remark, that the 
first week in January was uncommonly wet, and drowned with 
vast rains from every quarter : from whence it may be inferred, 
as there is great reason to believe is the case, that intense frosts 
seldom take place till the earth is perfectly glutted and chilled 
with water ;^ and hence dry autunnis are seldom followed by 
rigorous winters. 
Jamiary Ith. — Snow driving all the day, which was followed 
by frost, sleet, and some snow, till the ] 2th, when a prodigious 
mass overwhelmed all the Avorks of men, drifting over the tops 
of the gates, and filling the hollow lanes. 
On the 14th the writer was obliged to be much abroad ; and 
thinks he never, before or since, has encountered such rugged 
Siberian weather. Many of the narrow roads were now filled 
above the tops of the hedges ; through which the snow was 
driven into most romantic and grotesque shapes, so striking to 
the imagination as not to be seen without wonder and pleasure. 
The poultry dared not stir out of their roosting-places ; for 
cocks and hens are so dazzled and confounded by the glare of 
snow that they would soon perish without assistance. The hares 
also lay sullenly in their seats, and would not move till com- 
pelled by hunger ; being conscious, poor animals, that the drifts 
1 The autumn preceding January 1768 was very wet, and particularly the 
month of September, during which there fell at Lyndon, in the county of 
Kutland, six inches and a half of rain. And the terrible long frost in 1739-40 
set in after a rainy season, and when the springs were very high. 
