ABNORMAL COLD

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 36, 14 February 1929, Page 11

ABNORMAL COLD

RECORD OF THE PAST

THE FROZEN THAMES

Abnormal cold in Europo and in Britain has been recorded on numerous occasions sinco the dawn of reliable history. Tho Thames in Eugland has ou several occasions been frozen ovor, the depth of ice being such as to allow the holding of fairs oil the ice and even the roasting of whole oxen. In 1063 the Thames was frozen for 14 weeks; in 1434 the river from below London Bridge to Gravesend was frozen ovor from 24th November to 10th February; and fairs on the ice oh the Thames are recorded ag having takon place in 1564, 1607-8, 1620, 1683-84, 1688-89, 1715-10, 1739-40, 1788-89, and in 1813-14. CONTEMPORARY REFERENCE, A quaint entry in a. diary of 1684 records that the forest trees and even the daks of England were split by tho frost; most of the hollies and nearly all the birds were killed, the Thames being covored with eleven inches of ice. "Tho people kept trades on the Thames as in a fair until 4th February, 1864. About forty coaches daily plied on the Thamos as pn drye land; Bought this book at a shop upon the ice in the middle of the Thames." .

Tho most Revere frost in Britain and on the Continent of recent years was in February, 1895, the coldest February evor known in England. Ice on largo waters reached 25 inches in thickness, the temperature at Greenwich I falling to as low as seven degrees, equalling 25 degrees of frost, 4>ut further north it was colder still. Probably the lowest temperature evor recorded in London was on 3rd January, 1854, when the thermometer in London fell to eight degrees below zero. COLDEB EASTWARD. Several times in history has the Baltio Sea bean frozen over, horses and carriages being, driven across the ice, and as long ago as 760 the two seas at Constantinople were frozen a hundred miles from, the shore. There are numerous mentions in the records of wolves on the Continent being forced bj; the cold to seek" their food in the

Qitios and of the destruction of bird Itfe. The severe frost in Kussia in 1812 was very destructive to Napoleon's army in its retreat from Moscow.