ces 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 were somewhat damaged, but only in
hot aspects. No evergreens were quite destroyed, and not half the damage
sustained that befell in January 1768. Those laurels that were a little
scorched on the south sides were perfectly untouched on their north
sides. The care taken to shake the snow day by day from the branches
seemed greatly to avail the author's evergreens. A neighbour's laurel-
hedge, in a high situation, and facing to the north, was perfectly green
and vigorous, and the Portugal laurels remained unhurt.

As to the birds, the thrushes and blackbirds were mostly destroyed; and
the partridges, by the weather and poachers, were so thinned that few
remained to breed the following year.

LETTER LXIII.

As the frost in December 1784 was very extraordinary, you, I trust, will
not be displeased to hear the particulars, and especially when I promise
to say no more about the severities of winter after I have finished this
letter.

The first week in December was very wet, with the barometer very low. On
the 7th, with the barometer at 28.5 degrees--came on a vast snow, which
continued all that day and the next, and most part of the following
night; so that by the morning of the 9th the works of men were quite
overwhelmed, the lanes filled so as to be impassable, and the ground
covered twelve or fifteen inches without any drifting. In the evening of
the 9th the air began to be so very sharp that we thought it would be
curious to attend to the motions of a thermometer; we therefore hung out
two, one made by Martin and one by Dollond, which soon began to show us
what we were to expect; for by ten o'clock they fell to 21 degrees, and
at eleven to 4 degrees, when we went to bed. On the 10th, in the
morning, the quicksilver of Dollond's glass was down to half a degree
below zero; and that of Martin's, which was absurdly graduated only to
four degrees above zero, sank quite into the brass guard of the ball; so
that when the weather became most interesting this was useless. On the
10th, at eleven at night, though the air was perfectly still, Dollond's
glass went down to one degree below zero! This strange severity of the
weather made me very desirous to know what degree of cold there might be
in such an exalted and near situation as Newton. We had,