242 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
cold this for the south of England. During these four nights 
the cold was so penetrating that it occasioned ice in warm 
chambers ; 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 gray, 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 ist 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 2d of February the thaw 
persisted ; and on the 3d swarms of little insects were frisk- 
ing and sporting in a courtyard 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 Rutland, the ther- 
mometer stood at 19°; at Blackburn, in Lancashire, at 19° ; 
and at Manchester, at 21°, 20°, and 18°. Thus does some un- 
known 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 
——s ee 
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