NATURAL HISTORY Or SELBORNE 
195 
cold this for the south of England ! During these four nights the cold 
was so penetrating that it occasioned ice in warm chambers and under 
beds ; and in the day the wind was so keen that persons of robust 
constitutions could scarcely endure to face it. The Thames was at once 
so frozen over both above and below bridge that crowds ran about on 
the ice. The streets were now strangely encumbered with snow, which 
crumbled and trod dusty ; and, turning grey, resembled bay-salt ; what 
had fallen on the roofs was so perfectly dry that, from first to last, it 
lay twenty-six days on the houses in the city : a longer time than had 
been remembered by the oldest housekeepers living. According to all 
appearances we might now have expected the continuance of this 
rigorous weather for weeks to come, since every night increased in 
severity; but behold, without any apparent cause, on the 1st of 
February a thaw took place, and some rain followed before night, 
making good the observation above, that frosts often go off as it were 
at once, without any gradual declension of cold. On the 2nd of 
February the thaw persisted ; and on the 3rd swarms of little insects 
were frisking and sporting in a court-yard at South Lambeth, as if 
they had felt no frost. Why the juices in the small bodies and 
smaller limbs of such minute beings are not frozen is a matter of 
curious inquiry. 
Severe frosts seem to be partial, or to run in currents ; for at the 
same juncture, as the author was informed by accurate correspondents, 
at Lyndon, in the county of Eutland, the thermometer stood at 19° ; 
at Blackburn, in Lancashire, at 19°; and at Manchester at 21°, 20°, and 
18°. Thus does some unknown circumstance strangely overbalance 
latitude, and render the cold sometimes much greater in the southern, 
than the northern parts of this kingdom. 
The consequences of this severity were, that in Hampshire, at the 
melting of the snow, the wheat looked well, and the turnips came forth 
little injured. The laurels and laurustines were somewhat damaged, but 
only in hot aspects. No evergreens were quite destroyed ; and not half 
the damage sustained that befell in January 1768. Those laurels that 
were a little scorched on the south sides were perfectly untouched on 
their north sides. The care taken to shake the snow day by day from 
the branches seemed greatly to avail the author's evergreens. A 
neighbour's laurel-hedge, in a high situation, and facing to the north, was 
perfectly green and vigorous ; and the Portugal laurels remained unhurt. 
As to the birds, the thrushes and blackbirds were mostly destroyed ; 
and the partridges, by the weather and poachers, were so thinned that 
few remained to breed the following year. 
LETTEE LXIII. 
TO THE SAME. 
As the frost in Decembor 1784 was very extraordinary, you, I trust, 
will not be displeased to hear the particulars ; and especially when I 
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