248 TRAVELS THROUGH NORTH AMERICA : 
cd, and the country had exactly the appear¬ 
ance of November. On the tenth instant, the 
day after the frosty the thermometer was as 
low as 46° in the middle of the day ; yet four 
days afterwards it stood at 81°. During the 
remainder of the month, and during June, 
until 1 reached Philadelphia, it fluctuated be¬ 
tween 60° and 80°; the weather was on the 
whole fine, but frequently for a day or two 
together the air felt extremely raw and dis¬ 
agreeable. The changes in the state of the 
atmosphere were also sometimes very sudden. 
On the sixth day of June, when on my way 
to Frederic Town, after passing the Patowmac 
River, the most remarkable change of this 
nature took place which I ever witnessed. 
The morning had been oppressively hot; the 
thermometer at 81°, and the wind S. S. W. 
About one o’clock in the afternoon, a black 
cloud appeared in the horizon, and a tremen¬ 
dous gust came on, accompanied by thunder 
and lightning; several large trees were torn up 
by the roots by the wind; hail stones, about 
three times the size of an ordinary pea, fell 
for a few minutes, and afterwards a torrent of 
rain came pouring down, nearly as if a water¬ 
spout had broken overhead. Just before the 
gust came on, I bad suspended my thermometer 
from a window with a northern aspect, when 
it stood at 81°; but on looking at it at the 
