WEATHER. 
347 
During the whole of that period the weather 
had been extremely variable, scarcely ever re¬ 
maining alike four days together. As early 
as the fourteenth of March, in Pennsylvania, 
Fahrenheit’s thermometer stood at 65° at noon 
day, though not mere than a week before, it 
had been so low as 14°. At the latter end 
of the month, in Maryland, I scarcely ever 
observed it higher than 50° at noon : the even¬ 
ings were always cold, and the weather was 
squally and wet. In the northern neck of 
Virginia, for two or three days together, during 
the second week in April, it rose from 80° to 
84°, in the middle of the day; but on the wind 
suddenly shifting, it fell again, and remained 
below 70° for some days. As I passed along 
through the lower parts of Virginia, I fre¬ 
quently afterwards observed it as high as SO 0 
during the month of April; but on no day in 
the month of May previous to the fourteenth, 
did it again rise to the same height; indeed, 
so far from it, many of the days were too cold 
to be without fires; and on the night of the 
ninth instant, when I was in the neighbour” 
hood of the South-west Mountains, so sharp a 
frost took place, that it destroyed all the clier- 
ries, and also most of the early wheat, and of 
the young shoots of Indian corn; in some 
particular places, for miles together, the young 
leaves of the forest trees even were all wither- 
