1324. CLIMATE OF VIRGINIA.—
A
change in our [Virginia] climate is taking place
very sensibly. Both heats and colds are becoming
much more moderate within the memory
even of the middle-aged. Snows are less frequent
and less deep. They do not often lie, below the
mountains, more than, one, two, or three days,
and very rarely a week. They are remembered
to have been formerly frequent, deep, and of
long continuance. The elderly inform me, the
earth used to be covered with snow about three
months in every year. The rivers, which then
seldom failed to freeze over in the course of
the winter, scarcely ever do so now.—
Notes on Virginia. Washington ed. viii, 327.
Ford ed., iii, 185.
(1782)
