carriages of persons who got on their way to town from Bath, as far as Marlborough, after strange embarrassments, here met with a _ne plus ultra_. The ladies fretted, and offered large rewards to labourers, if they would shovel them a road to London; but the relentless heaps of snow were too bulky to be removed; and so the 18th passed over, leaving the company in very uncomfortable circumstances, at the Castle and other inns.' Yet all this time and till the 21st the cold was not so intense as it was in December 1878. On the 21st the thermometer showed 20 degrees, and had it not been for the deep snows, the winter would not have been very severely felt. On the 22nd, the author had occasion to go to London 'through a sort of Laplandian scene, very wild and grotesque indeed.' But London exhibited an even stranger appearance than the country. 'Being bedded deep in snow, the pavement of the streets could not be touched by the wheels or the horses' feet, so that the carriages ran almost without the least noise.' 'Such an exemption from din and clatter,' says White, 'was strange but not pleasant; it seemed to convey an uncomfortable idea of desolation: _Ipsa silentia terrent._ 'The worst had not yet, however, been reached. On the 27th much snow fell all day, and in the evening the frost became very intense. At South Lambeth, for the four following nights, the thermometer fell to eleven, seven, six, six; and at Selborne to seven, six, ten; and on the 31st, just before sunrise, with rime on the trees and on the tube of the glass, the quicksilver sank exactly to zero--_a most unusual degree of cold this for the South of England_.' During these four nights, the cold was so penetrating that ice formed under beds; and in the day the wind was so keen, that persons of robust constitutions could hardly endure to face it. 'The Thames was at once 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 rigorous weather might now have been expected for weeks to come, since every night increased in severity. 'But behold,' says White, 'without any apparent cause, on February 1, a thaw took place, and some rain followed before night, making good the observation that frosts often go off as it were at once without any gradual declension of cold. On February 2 the thaw persisted, and on the 3rd swarms of little insects were frisking and sporting in a court-yard 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.'