C 508 3 
the open air, in my garden, which varied Tome- 
times 40 or 50 degrees in 24 hours ; the cold com- 
ing, as it were, by fits, in a furprifing and unui'ual 
manner. 
December 50, at 1 1 o’clock at night. — All the fpi- 
rits in Haukfbee’s thermometer retired into the ball, 
and Farenheit’s flood at 20 degrees : At this time I 
let down a Farenheit’s thermometer into the river, to 
the depth of 4 feet, during 1 2 minutes ; and, when 
taken up, it flood at 33 degrees. 
This fame evening I expofed an open glafs jar full 
of water, in my garden, to be frozen ; and in the 
morning it was all lolid ice, rifing in the middle, in 
figure like the fruflum of a cone. I expofed alfo, in 
the fame place, an open glafs of ale, which froze 
even to the bottom, in a very odd manner 3 for the 
watry or weaker parts were frozen into plates of ice, 
flicking one to another by their edges, the more fpi- 
rituous parts remaining between them, in their inter- 
faces, unfrozen 3 which being drained off into an- 
other glafs, the tafle was almofl as flrong as brandy, 
with an high flavour of the hop. 
The rhine, or hoar-frofl, now obferved on hori- 
zontal planes, was compofed of curious thin figured 
plates, Handing perpendicular thereto 3 fome, at lead, 
four-tenths of an inch in length. 
Dec. 3 1 — This evening the cold was the mofl in- 
tenfe I have obferved it this feafon 3 for at ten o’clock 
Farenheit’s thermometer flood at 15 degrees. 
January 1. — This afternoon it began to thaw, and 
in the night froze again, whereby, next morning, our 
buildings in general appeared as if they had been 
white- waflied on the outfide, being cafed all over with 
rhine 
