The Natural History of Selborne

The frost has lasted now five weeks.

Most of the wells  in the street are dry! Among the rest my own is so shallow as not to admit the bucket to dip!  Moved some apples & pears into the kitchen-closet.  The horse-roads are dusty.

Thermr 20, 23, 17.  Many have been disordered with bad colds & fevers at Oxford.  The water in the apparatus for making mineral water froze in the red room.  The wind is so piercing that the labourers cannot stand to their work.  Ice in all the chambers.  The perforated stopple belonging to the apparatus broke in two by the frost.  Apples preserved with Potatoes & carrots in the cellar.  Shallow snow covers the ground, enough to shelter the wheat.

The navigation of the Thames is much interrupted thro’ the want of water occasioned by the long dry season.

The Stag seen again about Oakhanger. He some times haunts about Hartley wood, & some times about the Holt.

Great complaint for want of rain, & water, round Dublin in Ireland.

J. Hale clears out the ponds at Little comb.

Great want of water upon the downs about Andover.  The ponds, wells, & brooks fail.

The wind & frost cut down the wheat, which seems to want a mantle of snow.

The millers around complain that their streams fail, & they have no water for grinding.