NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
191 
It may not be impertinent to add, that the barometers at Selborne 
stand three-tenths of an inch lower than the barometers at South 
Lambeth : whence we may conclude that the former place is about 
three hundred feet higher than the latter; and with good reason, 
because the streams that rise with us run into the Thames at Weybridge, 
and so to London. Of course therefore there must be lower ground all 
the way from Selborne to South Lambeth ; the distance between which, 
all the windings and indentings of the streams considered, cannot be 
less than an hundred miles. I am, &c. 
LETTEE LXI. 
TO THE SAME. 
Since 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 concerning some of the great frosts, 
and a few respecting some very hot summers, that have distinguished 
themselves from the rest during the course of my observations. 
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 remark- 
ably 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 con- 
siderable 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 laurus- 
tines, bays, laurels, and arbutuses looked, in three or four days, as if 
they had been burnt 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, rather than the severity of the 
cold. Therefore it highly behoves every planter, who wishes to escape 
the cruel mortification of losing in a few days the labour and hopes of 
years, to bestir himself on such emergencies ; and if his plantations are 
small, to -avail himself of mats, cloths, pease-haum, straw, reeds, or any 
such covering, for a short time ; or, if his shrubberies are extensive, to 
see that his people go about with prongs and forks, and carefully 
dislodge the snow from the boughs : since the naked foliage will shift 
much better for itself, than where the snow is partly melted and 
frozen again. 
