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December
25th
Part
1 of Dec 25th
Part 2 of Dec 25th
THE CHRISTIAN AND OTHER ERAS IN CHRONOLOGY
The Christian Era adopts a particular year as a
commencement or starting-point, from which any
subsequent year may be reckoned. It has no particular
connection with Christmas-day, but it may
suitably be noticed in this place as associated with
that great festival.
All nations who have
made any great advance in civilization, have found it
useful to adopt some particular year as a
chronological basis. The Romans adopted for this
purpose the year, and even the day, which some of
their historians assigned as the date for the
foundation of Rome. That particular date, designated
according to our present chronology, was the 21st of
April, in the year 754
B.C.
They were wont to express
it by the letters
A.U.C.
, or Ab urbe condita,
signifying 'from the foundation of the city.' The
change effected in the calendar by the first two
Caesars, and which, with the alteration afterwards
rendered necessary by the lapse of centuries, forms,
to the present day, the standard for computing the
length and divisions of the year, took place 47
B.C
.
or 707
A.U.C.
The Olympiads were a Greek mode of computing
time, depending on chronological groups, each of which
measured respectively four years in length. They began
in 776
B.C.
, in commemoration of an event connected
with the Olympic Games. Each period of four years was
called an Olympiad; and any particular date was
denoted by the number of the Olympiad, and the number
of the year in it; such as the third year of the first
Olympiad, the first year of the fourth Olympiad, and
so on. The Greeks, like the Romans, made in ancient
times their civil years a little longer or a little
shorter than the true year, and were, like them,
forced to reform their calendar occasionally. One of
these reforms was made by Meton in 432
B.C.
, a year
which corresponded to the fourth year of the
eighty-sixth Olympiad; and another in 330
B.C.
When
the power of Greece sank to a shadow under the mighty
influence of that of Rome, the mode of reckoning by
Olympiads gradually went out of use.
The Christian Era, which is now adopted by all
Christian countries, dates from the year in which
Christ was born. According to Greek chronology, that
year was the fourth of the 194th Olympiad; according
to Roman, it was the year 753
A.U.C.
�or 754, if the
different dates for beginning the year be rectified.
It is remarkable, however, that the Christian era was
not introduced as a basis of reckoning till the sixth
century; and even then its adoption made very slow
progress. There is an ambiguity connected with the
Christian era, which must be borne in mind in
comparing ancient elates. Some chronologists reckon
the year immediately before the birth of Christ, as 1
B.C
.; while others call it
O.B.C
., reserving 1
B.C
.
for the actual year of the birth. There is much to be
adduced in favour of each of these plans; but it
suffices to say that the former is the one most
usually adopted.
The Julian Period is a measure of time proposed
by Joseph Scalier, consisting of the very long period
of 7980 years. It is not, properly speaking, a
chronological era; but it is much used by
chronologists on account of its affording considerable
facilities for comparing different eras with each
other, and in marking, without ambiguity, the years
before Christ. The number of years (7980) forming the
Julian period, marks the interval after which the sun,
moon, and earth will come round to exactly the same
positions as at the commencement of the cycle. The
exact explanation is too technical to be given here;
but we may mention the following two rules:�To convert
any date
B.C.
into the Julian system, subtract the
year
B.C.
from 4714, and the remainder is the
corresponding year in the Julian period; to convert
any date
A.D.
into the Julian system, add 4713 to the
year of the Christian era.
The Mohammedan Era, used by most or all
Mohammedan nations, dates from the flight of Mohammed
to Medina�the 15th of July, 622
A.D.
This date is
known as the Hegira, or flight. As the
Christian era is supposed to begin on the 1st of
January, year 0, a process of addition will easily
transfer a particular date from the Mohammedan to the
Christian era.
For some purposes, it is
useful to be able to transfer a particular year from
the Roman to the Christian era. The rule for doing so
is this: If the given Roman year be less than 754,
deduct it from 754; if the given Roman year be not
less than 754, deduct 753 from it; the remainder gives
the year
B.C
. in the one case, and A. D. in the
other.
In like manner it may be useful to know how to convert
years of the Greek Olympiads to years of the Christian
era. It is done thus: Multiply the next preceding
Olympiad by 4, and add the odd years; subtract the sum
from 777 if before Christ, or subtract 776 from the
sum if after Christ; and the remainder will be the
commencement of the given year�generally about the
middle of July in the Christian year.
In regard to all these five eras (and many others of
less importance), there is difficulty and confusion in
having to count sometimes backwards and some-times
forward, according as a particular date is before or
after the commencement of the era. To get over this
complexity, the
Creation of the World has been adopted, by
Christians and Jews alike, as the commencement of a
universal era. This would be unexceptionable, if
authorities agreed as to the number of years which
elapsed between that event and the birth of Christ;
but so far are they from agreeing, that, according to
competent authorities, there are one hundred and forty
different computations of this interval! The one most
usually adopted by English writers is 4004 years; but
they vary from 3616 up to 6484 years. The symbol
A.M.
,
or Anno Mundi, signifying 'year of the world,'
is arrived at by adding 4004 to the Christian
designation for the year�that is, if the popular
English chronology be adopted. There are, however,
three other calculations for the year of the world
that have acquired some historical note; and the best
almanacs now give the following among other
adjustments of eras�taking the year 1863 as an
example.
Christian Era (A. D.),
1863
Roman Year (A. V. C.), 2616
Anno Mundi (Jewish account), 5623
"
"
(Alexandrian account), 7355
"
"
(Constantinopolitan), 7371
"
"
(Popular Chronology), 5867
Mohammedan Era (A. H.), 1279
Julian Period, 6576
SIR ISAAC
NEWTON AND THE APPLE
The Christmas-day of 1642 was marked by the birth of
one of the world's greatest men�one who effected more
than any other person in rendering the world familiar
to us, in an astronomical point of view. During his
long and invaluable life, which extended to the 20th
of March 1727 (he presided at the meeting of the Royal
Society so late as the 28th of February in that year,
when more than eighty-four years of age), his
researches extended over an illimitable domain of
science, and are imperishably written on the page of
philosophy. One or two incidents connected with his
life will be found narrated in
a previous article; but we
may suitably notice, in this
place, the remarkable way in which the grandest and
most sublime of all his discoveries has become
popularly associated with a very trivial
circumstance�the fall of an apple.
It is curious to trace the manner in which this
apple-story has been told by different writers, and
the different opinions formed concerning it.
Pemberton, who received from Newton himself the
history of his first ideas of gravitation, does not
mention the apple, but speaks simply of the idea
having occurred to the philosopher 'as he sat alone in
a garden.' Voltaire says: One day, in the year
1666, Newton went into the country, and seeing fruit
fall from a tree (as his niece, Madame Conduit, has
informed me), entered into a profound train of thought
as to the causes which could lead to sucha
drawing-together or attraction.' Martin Folkes speaks
of the fruit being an apple. Hegel, referring to this
subject, alludes contemptuously to the story of the
apple, as a modern version of the history of the tree
of knowledge, with whose fruit the serpent beguiled
Eve. Gauss, 'a great mathematician, who believes that
a philosopher worthy of the name would not need to
have his attention drawn to the subject by so trivial
an incident, says: 'The history of the apple is too
absurd. Whether the apple fell or not, how can any one
believe that such a discovery could in that way be
accelerated or retarded? Undoubtedly, the occurrence
was something of this sort. There comes to Newton a
stupid importunate man, who asks him how he hit upon
his great discovery. When Newton had convinced himself
what a noodle he had to do with, and wanted to get rid
of the man, he told him that an apple fell on his
nose; and this made the matter quite clear to the man,
and he went away satisfied.'
Sir. David Brewster,
in his Life of Newton, does not expressly
declare either his acceptance or rejection of the
apple-legend; but his tone denotes the former rather
than the latter. He considers the date to have been
more probably 1665 than 1666, when:
'the apple is said
to have fallen from the tree at Woolsthorpe, and
suggested to Newton the idea of gravity. When sitting
alone in the garden, and speculating on the power of
gravity, it occurred to him that as the same power by
which the apple fell to the ground was not sensibly
diminished at the greatest distance from the centre of
the earth to which we can reach, neither at the
summits of the loftiest spires, nor on the tops of the
highest mountains, it might extend to the moon and
retain her in her orbit, in the same manner as it
bends into a curve a stone or a cannon ball, when
projected in a straight line from the surface of the
earth. If the moon was thus kept in her orbit by
gravitation to the earth, or, in other words, its
attraction, it was equally probable, he thought, that
the planets were kept in their orbits by gravitating
towards the sun.
Kepler had discovered the great law
of the planetary motions, that the squares of their
periodic times were as the cubes of their distances
from the sun; and hence Newton drew the important
conclusion, that the force of gravity or attraction,
by which the planets were retained in their orbits,
varies as the square of their distances from the sun.
Knowing the force of gravity at the earth's surface,
he was, therefore, led to compare it with the force
exhibited in the actual motion of the moon, in a
circular orbit; but having assumed that the distance
of the moon from the earth was equal to sixty of the
earth's semi-diameters, he found that the force by
which the moon was drawn from its rectilineal path in
a second of time was only 13.9 feet, whereas, at the
surface of the earth it was 16.1 feet. This great
discrepancy between his theory and what he then
considered to be the fact, induced him to abandon the
subject, and pursue other subjects with which he had
been previously occupied.'
In a note, Sir. David
adverts to the fact that both Newton's niece and
Martin Folkes (who was at that time president of the
Royal Society) had mentioned the story of the apple;
but that neither
Whiston nor Pemberton had done
so. He
speaks of a proceeding of his own, which denotes an
affection towards Newton's tree at Woolsthorpe, such
as might be felt by one who believed the story:
'We
saw the apple-tree in 1814, and brought away a portion
of one of its roots. The tree was so much decayed that
it was taken down in 1820, and the wood of it
carefully preserved by Mr. Turner of Stoke Rocheford.'
Professor De Morgan,
in a discussion which arose on this subject a few
years ago in the pages of Notes and Queries, points
out somewhat satirically, that the fact of such a tree
having stood in Newton's garden, goes very little way
towards proving that the fall of an apple from that
tree suggested the mighty theory to the philosopher;
and he illustrates it by the story of a man who once
said:
'Sir, he made a chimney in my father's house,
and the bricks are alive to this day to testify it;
therefore deny it not.'
Mr. De Morgan believes that
the current story grew out of a conversation,
magnified in the way of which we have such a multitude
of instances. Sir. Isaac, in casual talk with his
niece, may have mentioned the fall of some fruit as
having once struck his mind, when he was pondering on
the moon's motion; and she, without any intention of
deceiving, may have retailed this conversation in a
way calculated to give too much importance to it.
'The
story of the apple is pleasant enough, and would need
no serious discussion, if it were not connected with a
remarkable misapprehension. As told, the myth is made
to convey the idea that the fall of an apple put into
Newton's mind what had never entered into the mind of
any one before him�namely, the same kind of attraction
between several bodies as exists between an apple and
the earth. In this way, the real glory of such men as
Newton is lowered. It should be known that the idea
had been for many years floating before the minds of
physical inquirers, in order that a proper estimate
may be formed of the way in which Newton's power
cleared away the confusion, and vanquished the
difficulties which had prevented very able men from
proceeding beyond conjecture.'
Mr. De Morgan proceeds
to shew that Kepler, Bouillard, and Huyghens, had all
made discoveries, or put forth speculations, relating
to the probable law by which the heavenly bodies
attract each other; and that Newton, comparing those
partial results, and bringing his own idea of
universal gravitation to bear upon them, arrived at
his important conclusions, without needing any such
aid as the fall of an apple.
It may be mentioned as a curious circumstance, that a
controversy arose, a few years ago, on the question
whether or not Cicero anticipated Newton in the
discovery or announcement of the great theory of
gravitation. The matter is worthy of note, because it
illustrates the imperfect way in which that theory is
often understood. In the Tusculan Disputations of
Cicero, this passage occurs: 'Qud omnia delata
gravitate medium mundi locum semper expetant.' The
meaning of the passage has been regarded as somewhat
obscure; and in some editions In qud occurs instead of
Qua; nevertheless the idea is that of a central point,
towards which all things gravitate. In all
probability, others preceded Cicero in enunciating
this theory. But Newton's great achievement was to
dismiss this idea of a fixed point altogether,
and to substitute the theory of universal for
that of central gravitation; that is, that every
particle gravitates towards every other. If this
principle be admitted, together with the law that the
force of the attraction varies inversely as the square
of the distance, then the whole of the sublime system
of astronomy, so far as concerns the movements of the
heavenly bodies, becomes harmonious and intelligible.
Assuredly Cicero never conceived the Newtonian idea,
that when a ball falls to meet the earth, the earth
rises a little way to meet the ball�which is one
consequence of the law, that the ball attracts the
earth, as well as being attracted by it.
We may expect, in spite of all the arguments of the
sages, that the story of the apple will continue in
favour. In the beautiful new museum at Oxford, the
statue of Newton is sculptured with the renowned
pippin at the philosopher's feet.
LEGEND OF
THE GLASTONBURY THORN
The miraculous thorn-tree of
Glastonbury Abbey, in
Somersetshure, was stoutly believed in until very
recent times. One of the first accounts of it in print
was given in Hearse's History and Antiquities of
Glastonbury, published in 1722; the narration
consists of a short paper by Mr. Euston, called 'A
little Monument to the once famous Abbey and Borough
of Glastonbury, .. . with an Account of the Miraculous
Thorn, that blows still on Christmas-day, and the
wonderful Walnut-tree, that annually used to blow upon
St. Barnaby's Day.'
'My
curiosity,' he says, 'having led me twice to
Glastonbury within these two years, and inquiring
there into the antiquity, history, and rarities of the
place, I was told by the innkeeper where I set up my
horses, who rents a considerable part of the enclosure
of the late dissolved abbey, that
St. Joseph of
Arimathea landed not far from the town, at a place
where there was an oak planted in memory of his
landing, called the Oak of Avalon; that he (Joseph)
and his companions marched thence to a hill near a
mile on the south side of the town, and there being
weary, rested themselves; which gave the hill the name
of Weary-all-Hill; that St. Joseph stuck on the
hill his staff, being a dry hawthorn-stick, which
grew, and constantly budded and Mowed upon
Christmas-day; but, in the time of the Civil Wars,
that thorn was grubbed up. However, there were, in the
town and neighborhood, several trees raised from that
thorn, which yearly budded and blowed upon
Christmas-day, as the old root did.'
Eyston states that he was induced, by this narration,
to search for printed notices of this famous thorn;
and he came to a conclusion, that:
'whether it sprang
from St. Joseph of Arimathea's dry staff, stuck by him
in the ground when he rested there, I cannot find, but
beyond all dispute it sprang up miraculously! 'This
tree, growing on the south ridge of Weary-all-Hill
(locally abbreviated into Werrall), had a double trunk
in the time of Queen Elizabeth; 'in whose days a
saint-like Puritan, taking offence at it, hewed down
the biggest of the two trunks, and had cut down the
other body in all likelihood, had he not been
miraculously punished by cutting his leg, and one of
the chips flying up to his head, which put out one of
his eyes. Though the trunk cut off was separated quite
from the root, excepting a little of the hark which
stuck to the rest of the body, and lay above the
ground above thirty years together, yet it still
continued to flourish as the other part of it did
which was left standing; and after this again, when it
was quite taken away, and cast into a ditch, it
flourished and budded as it used to do before. A year
after this, it was stolen away, not known by whom or
whither. '
We are then, on the authority of a Mr.
Broughton, told how the remaining trunk appeared,
after its companion had been lopped off and secretly
carried away.
'The remaining trunk was as big as the ordinary body
of a man. It was a tree of that kind and species, in
all natural respects, which we term a white thorn; but
it was so cut and mangled round about in the bark, by
engraving people 's names resorting hither to see it,
that it was a wonder how the sap and nutriment should
be diffused from the root to the branches thereof,
which were also so maimed and broken by comers
thither, that I wonder how it could continue any
vegetation, or grow at all; yet the arms and boughs
were spread and dilated in a circular manner as far or
further than any other trees freed from such
impediments of like proportion, bearing haws as fully
and plentifully as others do. The blossoms of this
tree were such curiosities beyond seas, that the
Bristol merchants carried them into foreign parts.
'But this second trunk�which bore the usual infliction
of the names of silly visitors�was in its turn doomed
to destruction.
This trunk was likewise cut down by a
military saint, as Mr. Andrew Paschal calls him, in
the rebellion which happened in King Charles I's time.
However, there are at present divers trees from it, by
grafting and inoculation, preserved in the town and
country adjacent; amongst other places, there is one
in the garden of a currier, living in the principal
street; a second at the White Hart Inn; and a third in
the garden of William Strode, Esquire.'
Then ensues a specimen
of trading, by no means rare in connection with
religious relics:
'There is a person about
Glastonbury who has a nursery of them, who, Mr.
Paschal tells us he is informed, sells them for a
crown a piece, or as he can get.'
Nothing is more
probable. That there was a thorn-tree growing on the
hill, is undoubted; and if there was any religious
legend concerning its mode of getting there, a strong
motive would be afforded for preparing for sale young
plants, after the old one had disappeared. Down to
very recent times, thorn-trees have been shewn in
various parts of Somersetshire, each claiming to be
the Glastonbury thorn. In Withering's Arrangement
of British Plants, the tree is described
botanically, and then (in the edition of 1818) the
author says: 'It does not grow within the abbey at
Glastonbury, but in a lane beyond the churchyard, on
the other side of the street, by the side of a pit. It
appears to be a very old tree: an old woman of ninety
(about thirty years ago) never remembers it otherwise
than it now appears. There is another tree of the same
kind, two or three miles from Glastonbury. It has been
reported to have no thorns; but that I found to be a
mistake. It has thorns, like other hawthorns, but
which also in large trees are but few. It blossoms
twice a year. The winter blossoms, which are about the
size of a sixpence, appear about Christmas, and sooner
if the winter be severe.'
Concerning the alleged
flowering of the tree on Christmas-day especially,
there is a curious entry in the Gentleman's
Magazine for January 1753, when the public were
under some embarrassment as to dates, owing to the
change from the old style to the new. 'Glastonbury.�A
vast concourse of people attended the noted thorn on
Christmas-day, new style; but, to their great
disappointment, there was no appearance of its
blowing, which made them watch it narrowly the 5th of
January, the Christmas-day, old style, when it blowed
as usual.' Whether or not we credit the fact, that the
tree did blossom precisely on the day in question, it
is worthy of note that although the second trunk of
the famous legendary tree had been cut down and
removed a century before, some one particular tree was
still regarded as the wonderful shrub in question, the
perennial miracle.
A thorn-tree was not the only one regarded with
reverence at Glastonbury. Mr. Eyston thus informs us
of another:
'Besides the Holy Thorn, Mr. Camden says
there was a miraculous Walnut-Tree, which, by the
marginal notes that Mr. Gibson hath set upon Camden, I
found grew in the Holy Churchyard, near St. Joseph's Chappel. This tree, they
say, never budded forth
before the Feast of St. Barnabas, which is on the
eleventh of June, and on that very day shot out leaves
and flourish 't then as much as others of that kind.
Mr. Broughton says the stock was remaining still alive
in his time, with a few small branches, which
continued yearly to bring forth leaves upon St.
Barnabas 's Day as usual. The branches, when he saw
it, being too email, young, and tender to bring forth
fruit, or sustain their weight; but now this tree is
likewise gone, yet there is a young tree planted in
its place, but whether it blows, as the old one did,
or, indeed, whether it was raised from the old one, I
cannot tell. Doctor James Montague, Bishop of Bath and
Wells in King James I's days, was so wonderfully taken
with the extraordinariness of the Holy Thorn, and this
Walnut-Tree, that he thought a branch of these trees
was worthy the acceptance of the then Queen Anne, King
James I's consort. Fuller, indeed, ridicules the
Holy Thorn; but he is severely reproved for it by
Doctor Heylin (another Protestant writer), who says
"he hath heard from persons of great worth and credit,
dwelling near the place, that it had budded and blowed
upon Christmas Day," as we have above asserted.'
A flat stone, with certain initials cut in it, at the
present day marks the spot where the famous tree once
stood, and where, according to the legend,
Joseph of Arimathea
stuck his pilgrim's staff into the ground.
CHRISTMAS CUSTOM
AT CUMNOR
There is a pleasant Christmas custom connected with
the parish of Cumnor, in Berkshire, the church of
which is a vicarage, and a beautiful specimen of the
venerable parochial edifices of that kind in England.
On Christmas-day, after evening-service, the
parishioners, who are liable to pay any tithes, repair
to the vicarage, and are there entertained with bread,
cheese, and ale. It is no benefaction on the part of
the vicar, but claimed as a right on the part of the
parishioners, and even the quantity of the good things
which the vicar brings forward is specified. He must
have four bushels of malt brewed in ale and
small-beer, two bushels of wheat made into bread, and
half a hundredweight of cheese; and whatever remains
unconsumed by the vicarage-payers is distributed next
day, after morning prayers, among the poor.
Cumnor Church, Berkshire
In
connection with this parish, there is another curious
custom, arising from the fact that Cassenton, a little
district on the opposite side of the Thames, was once
a part of it. The Cassenton people had a space on the
north side of the church set apart fortheir burials,
and on this account paid sixpence a year to Cumnor.
They had to bring their dead across the Thames at
Somerford Mead, where the plank stones they used in
crossing remained long after visible; thence they came
along a 'riding' in Cumnor Wood, which they claimed as
their church-way, beginning the psalm-singing at a
particular spot, which marked the latter part of, the
ceremonial.
Not less curious is the perambulation performed in
this parish during Rogation week.
On arriving at Swinford Ferry, the procession goes across and lays
hold of the twigs on the opposite shore, to mark that
they claim the breadth of the river as within the
bounds of the parish. The ferryman then delivers to
the vicar a noble (6s. 8d.), in a bowl of the
river-water, along with a clean napkin. The vicar
fishes out the money, wipes his fingers, and
distributes the water among the people in
commemoration of the custom. It seems a practice such
as the Total Abstinence Society would approve of; but
we are bound to narrate that the vicarage-dues
collected on the occasion, are for the most part
diffused, in the form of ale, among the thirsty
parishioners.
THE SEVERE CHRISTMAS OF 1860: INTENSE COLD AND ITS
EFFECTS
The Christmas of 1860 is believed to have been the
severest ever experienced in Britain. At nine o'clock
in the morning of Christmas-day in that year, the
thermometer, at the Royal Humane Society's Receiving
House, in Hyde Park, London, marked 15� Fahrenheit, or
17� below the freezing-point, but this was a mild
temperature compared with what was prevalent in many
parts of the country during the preceding night. Mr.
E. J. Lowe, a celebrated meteorologist, writing on
25th December to the Times, from his observatory at
Beeston, near Nottingham, says:
'This morning the
temperature at four feet above the ground was 8�
below zero, and on the grass 13.8� below zero, or
45.8� of frost. The maximum heat yesterday was only
2�, and from 7 P.M. till 11 A.M. the temperature never
rose as high as zero of Fahrenheit's thermometer. At
the present time (12.30 P.M.), the temperature is 7� above zero at four
feet, and 2.5� above zero on the
grass.'
Other observations recorded throughout England
correspond with this account of the intensity of the
cold, by which, at a nearly uniform rate, the three
days from the 24th to the 26th December were
characterized. The severity of that time must still be
fresh in the memory of our readers. In the letter of
Mr. Lowe, above quoted, he speaks of having:
'just seen
a horse pass with icicles at his nose three inches in
length, and as thick as three fingers.'
Those who then
wore mustaches must remember how that appendage to the
upper-lip became, through the congelation of the
vapour of the breath, almost instantaneously stiff and
matted together, as soon as the wearer put his head
out of doors.
What made this severity
of cold the more remarkable, was the circumstance that
for many years previously the inhabitants of the
British Islands had experienced a succession of
generally mild winters, and the present generation had
almost come to regard as legendary the accounts which
their fathers related to them of the hard frosts and
terrible winters of former times. Here, therefore, was
an instance of a reduction of temperature
unparalleled, not only in the recollection of the
oldest person living, but likewise in any trustworthy
record of the past.
During the three days referred to, the damage
inflicted on vegetation of all kinds was enormous. The
following account of the effects of the frost in a
single garden, in a well-wooded part of the county of
Suffolk, may serve as a specimen of the general damage
occasioned throughout England. The garden referred to
is bounded on the west by a box-hedge, and on the
south by a low wall, within which was a strip of
shrubbery consisting of laurels, Portugal laurels,
laurustinus, red cedar, arbor vitae, phillyrea, &c.
Besides these, there stood in the garden some
evergreen oaks, five healthy trees of some forty years
'growth, two yews (which were of unknown age, but had
been large trees beyond the memory of man), and a few
younger ones between thirty and forty years old. All
these, with the exception of the young yew-trees, the
red cedars, the box, some of the arbor vitae and some
little evergreen oaks, were either killed outright, or
else so injured that it became necessary to cut them
down. Nor was this done hastily without waiting to see
whether they would recover themselves; ample time was
given for discovering whether it was only a temporary
check from which the trees and shrubs were suffering,
or whether it was an utter destruction of that part of
them which was above ground. In some cases, it was
found that the root was still alive, and this
afterwards sent forth fresh shoots, but in other cases
it turned out to be a destruction literally 'root and
branch.' Some of the trees, indeed, after having been
cut down level with the ground, made a desperate
attempt to revive, and sent up apparently healthy
shoots; but the attempt was unsuccessful, and the
shoots withered.
Nor was the damage confined to the evergreens:
fruit-trees suffered also; for instance, apple-trees
put forth leaves and flowers, which looked well enough
for a time, but, before the summer was over, these
withered, as if they had been burned; while one large
walnut-tree, half a century old, not only had its
young last year's shoots killed, but lost some of its
largest branches.
Beyond the limits of the garden referred to, the
effects of this frost were no less remarkable.
Elm-trees were great sufferers; they, along with the
very oaks, had many of their outer twigs killed; and a
magnificent, perhaps unique, avenue of cedars of
Lebanon, which must have been among the oldest of
their kind in the kingdom (they were only introduced
in Charles II's reign) was almost entirely ruined.
Notwithstanding this unexampled descent of
temperature, the nadir, as it may be termed, of cold
yet experienced in Britain, the period during which it
continued to prevail was of such short duration that
there was no time for it to effect those wonderful
results which we read of in former times as occasioned
by a severe and unusually protracted frost. In
a former part
of this work, we have
given an account of several remarkably hard frosts,
which are recorded to have taken place in England.
From a periodical work we extract the following notice
of similar instances which occurred chiefly on the
continent of Europe in past ages.
'In the year 401,
the Black Sea was entirely frozen over. In 452, the
Danube was frozen, so that Thredmare marched on the
ice to Swabia, to avenge his brother 's death. In 642,
the cold was so intense that the Strait of Dardanelles
and the Black Sea were entirely frozen over. The snow,
in some places, drifted to the depth of 90 feet, and
the ice was heaped in such quantities on the cities as
to cause the walls to fall down. In 85�, the Adriatic
was entirely frozen over. In 892 and 898, the vines
were killed by frost, and cattle died in their stalls.
In 981, the winter lasted very long and was extremely
severe.
Everything was frozen over, and famine and pestilence
closed the year. In 1207, the cold was so intense that
most of the travelers in Germany were frozen to death
on the roads. In 1233, it was excessively cold in
Italy; the Po was frozen from Cremona to the sea,
while the heaps of snow rendered the roads impassable;
wine-casks burst, and trees split by frost with an
immense noise. In 1234, a pine-forest was killed by
frost at Ravenna. In 1236, the frost was intense in
Scotland, and the Cattegat was frozen between Norway
and Jutland. in 1282, the houses in Austria were
covered with snow. In 1292, the Rhine was frozen; and
in Germany 600 peasants were employed to clear the way
for the Austrian army. In 1314, all the rivers in
Italy were frozen. In 1384, the winter was so severe
that the Rhine and Scheldt were frozen, and even the
sea at Venice. In 1467, the winter was so severe in
Flanders that the wine was cut with hatchets to be
distributed to the soldiery. In 1580, the frost was
very intense in England and Denmark; both the Little
and Great Belt were frozen over. In 1694, many
forest-trees and oaks in England were split with the
frost. In 1592, the cold was so intense, that the
starved wolves entered Vienna, and attacked both mien
and cattle. The cold of 1540 was scarcely inferior to
that of 1692, and the Zuyder-Zee was entirely frozen
over. In 1776 much snow fell, and the Danube bore ice
five feet thick below Vienna.'
In the winter of
1848-1849, the public journals recorded that the
mercury, on one occasion, froze in the thermometers at Aggershuus, in Sweden. Now,
as mercury freezes at 39�
below zero, marked scientifically as -39�, that is,
71� below the freezing-point, we know that the
temperature must have been at least as low as
this�perhaps several degrees lower. And yet, as we
shall afterwards shew, lower degrees of temperature
even than this have been experienced by the Arctic
voyagers.
As might be expected, it is from the latter voyagers
that we obtain some of the most interesting
information concerning low temperatures. In the long
and gloomy winter of the polar regions, the cold
assumes an intensity of which we can form little
conception. Mercurial thermometers often become
useless; for when the mercury solidifies, it can sink
no further in the tube, and ceases to be a correct
indicator. As a more available instrument, a
spirit-thermometer is then used, in which the place of
mercury is supplied by rectified spirit of wine. With
such thermometers, our Arctic explorers have recorded
degrees of cold far below the freezing-point of
mercury. Dr. Kane, the
American Arctic explorer, in
his narrative of the Grinnell Expedition in search of
Franklin, records having experienced -42� on the
7th February 1851; that is, 74� of frost, or 3� below
the freezing point of mercury.
Let us conceive what it must have been to act a play,
in a temperature only a few degrees above this! A week
after the date last mentioned, the crew of the ship
engaged in the expedition referred to, performed a
farce called The Mysteries and Miseries of New York!
The outside temperature on that evening was -36�; in
the 'theater' it was -25� behind the scenes, and -2� in the audience
department. One of the sailors had to
enact the part of a damsel with bare arms; and when a
cold flat-iron, part of the 'properties' of the
theatre, touched his skin, the sensation was like that
of burning with a hot-iron. But this was not the most
arduous of their dramatic exploits.
On Washington's
birthday, February 22nd, the crew had another
performance.
'The ship's thermometer outside was at
-46� ; inside, the audience and actors, by aid of
lungs, lamps, and hangings, got as high as -3�, only
62� below the freezing point�perhaps the lowest
atmospheric record of a theatrical representation. It
was a strange thing altogether. The condensation was
so excessive, that we could barely see the performers;
they walked in a cloud of vapour. Any extra vehemency
of delivery was accompanied by volumes of smoke. Their
hands steamed. When an excited Thespian took off his
coat, it smoked like a dish of potatoes.'
Dr. Kane records having experienced as low a
temperature as -53�, or 85� below the freezing point;
but even this is surpassed in a register furnished by
Sir Edward Belcher, who, in January 1854, with
instruments of unquestioned accuracy, endured for
eighty-four consecutive hours, a temperature never
once higher than -5�. One night it sank to -59
1/4
�;
and on another occasion the degree of cold reached was
-62
1/2
�,
or 94
1/2
�
below the freezing-point! Such narratives excite a
curiosity to know how such intense cold can be borne
by the human frame. All the accounts obtainable tend
to shew that food, clothing, activity, and
cheerfulness, are the four chief requisites.
Dr. E. D. Clarke, the celebrated traveler, told Dr.
Whiting that he was once nearly frozen to death�not in
any remote polar region, but in the very
matter-of-fact county of Cambridge. After performing
divine service at a church near Cambridge, one cold
Sunday afternoon in 1818, he mounted his horse to
return home. Sleepiness came upon him, and he
dismounted, walking by the head of his horse; the
torpor increased, the reins dropped from his hand, and
he was just about sinking probably never again to
rise�when a passing traveler rescued him. This torpor
is one of the most perilous accompaniments of extreme
cold, and is well illustrated in the anecdote related
of Dr. Solander in a previous
article.
Sir Edward Parry remarks, in reference to extremely
low temperatures:
'Our bodies appeared to adapt
themselves so readily to the climate, that the scale
of our feelings, if I may so express it, was soon
reduced to a lower standard than ordinary; so that
after being for some days in a temperature of -15� or
-20�, it felt quite mild and comfortable when the
thermometer rose to zero'
that is, when it was 32
'below the freezing-point. On one occasion, speaking
of the cold having reached the degree of�55�, he says:
'Not the slightest inconvenience was suffered from
exposure to the open air by a person well clothed, so
long as the weather was perfectly calm; but in walking
against a very light air of wind, a smarting sensation
was experienced all over the face, accompanied by a
pain in the middle of the forehead, which soon became
rather severe.'
As a general remark, Parry on another
occasion said:
'We find it necessary to use great
caution in handling our sextants and other
instruments, particularly the eye-pieces, of
telescopes, which, if suffered to touch the face,
occasioned an intense burning pain.'
Sir Leopold M'Clintock, while sledging over the ice in
March 1859,
trudged with his men eight hours at a stretch, over
rough hummocks of ice, without food or rest, at a
temperature of -48�, or eighty degrees below the
freezing-point, with a wind blowing too at the time.
In one of the expeditions a sailor incautiously did
some of his outdoor work without mittens; his hands
froze; one of them was plunged into a basin of water
in the cabin, and the intense cold of the hand
instantly froze the water, instead of the water
thawing the hand! Poor fellow: his hand required to be
chopped off.
Dr. Kane, who experienced more even than the usual
share of sufferings attending these expeditions,
narrates many anecdotes relating to the cold. One of
his crew put an icicle at�28� into his mouth, to crack
it; one fragment stuck to his tongue, and two to his
lips, each taking off a bit of skin�burning it off, if
this term might be used in an inverse sense. At -25�:
'the beard, eyebrows, eye-lashes, and the downy
pubescence of the ears, acquire a delicate, white, and
perfectly enveloping cover of venerable hoar-frost.
The moustache and under-lip form pendulous beads of
dangling ice. Put out your tongue, and it instantly
freezes to this icy crusting, and a rapid effort, and
some hand-aid will be required to liberate it. Your
chin has a trick of freezing to your upper jaw by the luting aid of your beard;
my eyes have often been so
glued, as to shew that even a wink may be unsafe.'
In reference to the
torpor produced by
extreme cold,
Dr. Kane further remarks:
'Sleepiness is not the sensation. Have you ever
received the shocks of a magneto-electric machine, and
had the peculiar benumbing sensation of "Can't let
go," extending up to your elbow joints? Deprive this
of its paroxysmal character; subdue, but diffuse it
over every part of the system�and you have the
so-called pleasurable feelings of incipient freezing.'
One day he walked himself into 'a comfortable
perspiration, 'with the thermometer seventy degrees
below the freezing -point. A breeze sprang up, and
instantly the sensation of cold was intense. His
beard, coated before with icicles, seemed to bristle
with increased stiffness; and an unfortunate hole in
the back of his mitten 'stung like a burning coal. 'On
the next day, while walking, his beard and moustache
became one solid mass of ice. 'I inadvertently put out
my tongue, and it instantly froze fast to my lip. This
being nothing new, costing only a smart pull and a
bleeding afterwards, I put up my mittened hands to
"blow hot," and thaw the unruly member from its
imprisonment. Instead of succeeding, my mitten was
itself a mass of ice in a moment; it fastened on the
upper side of my tongue, and flattened it out like a
batter-cake between the two disks of a hot gridle. It
required all my care with the bare hands to release
it, and then not without laceration.'
The following remarkable
instances of the disastrous results of extreme cold in
Canada are related by Sir
Francis Head:
'I one day inquired of a
fine, ruddy, honest-looking man, who called upon me,
and whose toes and insteps of each foot had been
truncated, how the accident happened? He told me that
the first winter he came from England, he lost his way
in the forest, and that after walking for some hours,
feeling pain in his feet, he took off his boots, and
from the flesh immediately swelling, he was unable to
put them on again. His stockings, which were very old
ones, soon wore into holes, and as rising on his
insteps he was hurriedly proceeding he knew not where,
he saw with alarm, but without feeling the slightest
pain, first one toe and then another break off, as if
they had been pieces of brittle stick; and in this
mutilated state he continued to advance till he
reached a path which led him to an inhabited
log-house, where he remained suffering great pain till
his cure was effected. On another occasion, while an
Englishman was driving, one bright beautiful day, in a
sleigh on the ice, his horse suddenly ran away, and
fancying he could stop him better without his
cumbersome fur-gloves than with them, he unfortunately
took them off. As the infuriated animal at his utmost
speed proceeded, the man, who was facing a keen
northwest wind, felt himself gradually, as it were,
turning into marble; and by the time he stopped, both
his hands were so completely and so irrecoverably
frozen, that he was obliged to have them amputated.'
Englishmen, take them
one with another, bear up against intense cold better
than against intense heat, one principal reason being,
that the air is in such circumstances less tainted
with the seeds of disease. They are then more lively
and cheerful, feel themselves necessitated to active
and athletic exertion, and become, consequently,
better able to combat the adverse influences of a low
degree of temperature.
December 26
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