SEASONS AND CLIMATE.

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"I sing the varying seasons and their change."

IT is intended to include in the present chapter, only such notable changes of the temperature in the extremes of heat and cold, as was matter of surprise or remark at the time of the occurrence, and therefore most likely to arrest our attention in the present day-as a wonder of the past!

As early as the year 1683, William Penn, in his letter to Lord North, of 24th, 5th month, says "The weather often changeth without notice, and is constant almost in its inconstancy!" Thus giving us, at a very slender acquaintance, the name of a coquetish clime!

An oldfashioned snow storm, such as we had lately on the 20th and 21st of February, 1829, is the best thing in our country to bring to recollection olden time, when our fathers browbeat larger snowdrifts than have encumbered our fields and roads since honesty and leather aprons were in vogue! It is cheering to see the towering bank in a sunny morning gemmed, like the crown of a monarch, with jewels that receive their splendour from the sun's rays, and reflect them back to ornament the cold white hillock which the clouds have bestowed upon us, to awaken recollections dear, and sensations as cutting as the winter. It tells you of log fires which cheered them in the wilderness, and warmed the pottage which gave them the very hue of health. In short, as said the Literary Cadet, " a snow storm in its severest form is a mirror, to reflect back olden time, in all its colouring, to the present!" Nor is it less grateful, as a winter scene, to behold the occasional magnificent effulgence of an ice-rain, embossing in crystal glory, as if by magic hands, the whole surface of the surrounding works of nature and art.

"For every shrub and every blade of grass,

And every pointed thorn, seems wrought in glass;
In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorn show,
While through the ice the crimson berries glow.
The spreading oak, the beech and towering pine,
Glazed over, in the freezing ether shine-
The frighted birds the rattling branches shun,
That wave and glitter in the glowing sun."

It is probable that the winter of 1682, being the first which Penn saw here, must have been peculiarly mild, for he says he scarcely saw any ice at all, and in the next year the winter of 1683, which he calls the severest before known, froze up for a few days our great river Delaware! He must certainly have been too favourably impressed by wrong information, for often the river has continued ice-bound for three months at a time. It was, however, grateful intelligence to the colonists then, and must have been a most welcome incident, ill-sheltered as they were, to have such favourable winters.

In his letter of August, 1683, to the Free Society of Traders, he thus speaks of the climate, to wit: "I have lived over the hottest and coldest seasons of the year that the oldest inhabitants remember. From the 24th of October to the beginning of December he found it like an English mild spring. From December to the beginning of March they had sharp frosts with a clear sky as in summer, and the air dry, cold and piercing. This cold is caused by the great lakes that are fed by the fountains of Canada. The air, already sweet and clear, rarely overcast, will refine as the woods are cleared off." Thus the reasons of our former colder winters was then well understood. He has another shrewd remark :—“It is rare to want a North Wester; and whatever mists, fogs or vapours foul the heavens by easterly or southerly winds, in two hours time are blown away,-the one is followed by the other-a remedy that seems to have a peculiar providence in it. The winter before this (last) was mild. From March to June they enjoyed a sweet spring, with gentle showers and a fine sky. From June to August, which endeth the summer, they had extraordinary heats."

Thomas Makin's Latin description of Pennsylvania thus describes our climate as he knew it down to the year 1729, to wit:

Nay, oft so quick the change,so great its pow'r
As summer's heat and winter in an hour!"
"Sometimes the ice so strong and firm, we know
That loaded wagons on the rivers go!
But yet so temp'rate are some winters here,
That in the streams no bars of ice appear!"

Professor Kalm, the Swedish traveller, who visited us in 1748-9, has left several facts descriptive of our climate, which he derived from the aged Swedes and by his own observation, to wit:

It snowed much more formerly in winter than in the time of 1748. The weather then was more constant and uniform, and when the cold set in it continued to the end of February or till March, old style; after which it commonly began to grow warm. But in 1748, and thereabouts, it would be warm even the very next day after a severe cold,-and sometimes the weather would change several times a day! Most of the old people told Mr. Kalm that spring came much later than formerly, and that it was much colder

in the latter end of February and the whole month of May than when they were young. Formerly the fields were as green and the air as warm about the end of February, as it was then in March or the beginning of April, old style. Their proverb then We have always grass at Easter."

was..

The lessening of vapours by cultivation, &c. was supposed to have changed the seasons.

The winters he understood, came sooner formerly than since. The first Mr. Norris used to say that the Delaware was usually covered with ice about the middle of November, old style. so that merchants always hurried their vessels for sea before that time. But about the year 1748 the river seldom froze over before the middle of December, old style.

An old Swede of 91 years of age, told him he thought he had never witnessed any winter so cold as that of the year 1697-8-at which time he had passed the Delaware at Christianna several times with his wagons loaded with hay. He did not agree to the idea of others, that the waters had generally diminished.

Isaac Norris' letter of the 8th of October, 1702, says, We have had a snow, and now the North West blows very hard. The cold is great, so that at the falling of the wind the river (at Philadelphia) was filled with ice. On the 10th, he adds, there is a sign of a thaw, and he hopes vessels may yet get out.

The severity of the winter 1704-5, is thus expressed by Isaac Norris, sen. to wit: "We have had the deepest snow this winter that has been known by the longest English liver here.—No travelling; all avenues shut; the Post has not gone these six weeks; the river fast; and the people bring loads over it as they did seven years ago-[as in 1697-8 aforementioned.] Many creatures are like to perish." Kalm says many stags, birds, and other animals died, and that the snow was nearly a yard deep.

Early ice was thus noticed the 23d of November, 1732, saying, it has been so very cold this week past that our river is full of driving ice, and no vessel can go up or down-a thing rarely happening so early. Many persons have violent colds.

The winter of 1740-1, a great snow. This winter was very severe during the continuance of "the great snow." It was in general more than three feet deep. The back settlers (says the Gazette) subsisted chiefly on the carcasses of the deer found dead, or lying around them. Great part of "the gangs" of horses and cows in the woods also died. Ten and twelve deer are found in the compass of a few acres, near to springs. The chief severity was in February.* Many deer came to the plantations and fed on hay with the other creatures. Squirrels and birds were found frozen to death. By the 19th of March the river becomes quite open. Old Mrs. Shoe

It was in February of the year 1717, that the greatest recorded "snow storm" of Massachusetts occurred;-it being from ten to twenty feet deep-compelling many to go abroad on its frozen crust from their chamber windows,

maker, whom I knew, told me of her recollection of that severe winter, to the above effect. Her words were, that all the tops of the fences were so covered that sleighs and sleds passed over them in every direction. James Logan's letter of 1748, calls it the hard winter of 1741,"-as a proverbial name, saying "it was one of remarkable severity-the most rigorous that has ever been known here." Kalm says it began the 10th of December. and continued to the 13th of March, old style, and that some of the stags which came then to the barns to eat with the cattle, became domesticated thereby.

The 1st of November, 1745, is recorded by John Smith, in his Journal, as the cold day-the river having frozen over at Burlington, and many boys skating on the Schuylkill.

The 17th of March, 1760, Franklin's Gazette records "the greatest fall of snow ever known in Philadelphia since the settlement!" This is certainly saying much of such a snow so late in March!--[as marking the contrast the day I write this-on the 12th of March, 1829, it is mild and thundered several times!] The wind in the snow-storm was from north-east, and fell incessantly for 18 hours. The minutes of Assembly show that the snow in some places gathered seven feet deep, and prevented the Speaker and many members to get to town-so the house was adjourned.

The same winter another singular circumstance occurred-told to me by old Isaac Parish, to wit: The day he was married the weather was so soft and open that the wedding guests had to walk on boards to the Meeting to keep them out of the soft mire; but that night the cold became so intense that the river Delaware froze up so firmly that his friend William Cooper, married at the same time with himself, walked over to Jersey on the ice bridge on the next morning. No ice was previously in the river.

Mrs. Shoemaker, who died at the age of 95, told me she had seen the deep snows of 1740 and '80; and from her recollections she said the winter of 1780 was probably as deep as that of 1740, and withal was remarkably cold, so much so as to be called the hard winter of 1780.

The winter of 1784 was also long remembered for its severity and long continuance.

Mild Winters.

The following are instances of mild winters, occurring in the years 1790, 1802, 1810, 1824, and 1828, and here severally stated in their detail for the purpose of comparison, to wit:

Extract from A. II's. Diary, for 1789 and 1790.

12th mo. 1789.-The weather moderate during the early part of this month. 25th, (Christmas,) a pleasant day-no ice in the DelawareThree light snows this month. Rain from the 28th to the 31st, but the weather moderate.

1st mo. 1, 1790.-A charming day-no ice in the river, and no frost in the ground.

2. This day as pleasant as yesterday-boys swam in the Delaware, and ships sail as in summer-flies common in houses.

12th. Cold-skating on the pavement this morning.

15th. Cold-snow on the ground this morning-continued snowing until 9, A. M.-wind N. E.

2d mo. 7.-Navigation stopped for the first time this winter-morning cold, with a strong wind from South.

13th. Delaware river froze very hard-weather clear and cold-wind N. W. by West.

16th. Delaware river broke up-weather foggy, very damp and warm, with a thaw-wind south-west-heavy rain at night, with thunder and lightning.

3d mo. 11. The deepest snow on the ground we have had this winter some ice in the Delaware.

An ancient female Friend informed me she remembered a similar moderate winter 60 years ago, in which the Delaware was not frozen; and that the ensuing summer was healthy and very plentiful, as were the years 1790, 1802 and 1810.

Extract from A. H's. Diary, for 1802.

1st mo. 12th.-Morning very cold-wind high, with flying cloudsthis day the most like winter of any this season.

15th.-Remarkably pleasant, wind south south-west-no skating for the boys this winter-not one cake of ice in the Delaware, and even the ponds are not froze hard enough to bear for two days together-prevalent winds south-west.

19th. A very great white frost this morning.

2d mo. 5th. And sixth of the week-by far the coldest morning this season-froze very hard last night-wind west and a very clear horizon.

6th.-Very cold-water froze in chambers first time this seasonsome ice about the pumps in the streets-Schuylkill froze over.

19th. Weather moderate-a fine shad in our market this morningthis is remarkable; but what is more so, I find recorded, 1st mo. 19th, 1793, the extreme temperature of the weather exceeds all winters I have known-this day and others preceding, may be compared to part of April, as one day this week a shad was caught in the Delaware.

Extract from A. H's. Diary, for January, 1810.

Ist mo. 18th. And fifth of the week-sun rose clear-a heavy white frost-wind south-soon clouded-wind south-west-some rain before noon, and some sunshine-cleared towards evening-wind shifted to north-west, with a heavy gale all night. Jack Frost has opened his pipes to some purpose-many people seemed to think we should have no winter, but now it appears to have begun in earnest.

19th. And sixth of the week-morning clear and very cold-wind north-west and a gale-streets froze very hard-34 degrees colder this morning than yestermorn, same time. The tide in the Delaware has not been so low for 14 years as this day.