OF SELBORNE. 
for fnow is the moft kindly mantle that infant vegetation can be 
wrapped in : were it not for that friendly meteor no vegetable life 
could exift at all in northerly regions. Yet in Szveden the earth in 
ylpril is not divefted of fnow for more than a fortnight before the 
face of the country is covered with flowers. 
LETTER LXI. 
TO THE SAME. 
There were fome circumftances attending the remarkable froft 
in January 1776 fo fmgular and ftriking, that a Ihort detail of 
them may not be unacceptable. 
The moll certain way to be exa6l will be to copy the paffages 
from my journal, which were taken from time to time as things 
occurred. But it may be proper previoufly to remark that the firft 
week in January was imcommonly wet, and drowned with vaft 
rains from every quarter : from whence may be inferred, as there 
is great reafon to believe is the cafe, that intenfe frofts feldom 
take place till the earth is perfedly glutted and chilled with 
water ^ ; and hence dry autumns are feldom followed by rigorous 
winters. 
f The autumn preceding 'January 1768 was very wet, and particularly the month 
of September, during which there fell at Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, fix inches and 
an half of rain. And the terrible long frolt in 1739-40 fct in after a rainy feafon, and 
when the fprings were very high. 
P p 2 January 
