OF b'ELBOBNE. 
299 
LETTER LXL 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 
INCE the weather of a district is undoubtedly 
part of its natural history, I shall make no 
further apology for the four following letters, 
which will contain many particulars con- 
cerning some of the great frosts and a few 
respecting some very hot summers, that have distinguished 
themselves from the rest daring the course of my obser- 
vations. 
As the frost in January, 1768, was, for the small time it 
lasted, the most severe that we had then known for many years, 
and was remarkably injurious to evergreens, some account 
of its rigour, and reason of its ravages, may be useful, and 
not unacceptable to persons that delight in planting and 
ornamenting ; and may particularly become a work that 
professes never to lose sight of utility. 
For the last two or three days of the former year there 
were considerable falls of snow, which lay deep and uniform 
on the ground, without any drifting, wrapping up the more 
humble vegetation in perfect security. From the first day 
to the fifth of the new year more snow succeeded; but from 
that day the air became entirely clear ; and the heat of the 
sun about noon had a considerable influence in sheltered 
situations. 
It was in such an aspect that the snow on the author's 
evergreens was melted every day, and frozen intensely 
every night; so that the laurustines, bays, laurels, and 
arbutuses looked, in three or four days, as if they had been 
burned in the fire; while a neighbour's plantation of the 
same kind, in a high cold situation, where the snow was 
never melted at all, remained uninjured. 
From hence I would infer, that it is the repeated melting 
and freezing of the snow that is so fatal to vegetation. 
