1325. CLIMATE OF VIRGINIA.—[continued].
The change which has
taken place in our [Virginia] climate, is one of
those facts which all men of years are sensible
of, and yet none can prove by regular evidence;
they can only appeal to each other's general
observation for the fact. I remember when I
was a small boy (say sixty years ago), snows
were frequent and deep in every winter—to
my knee very often, to my waist sometimes—
and that they covered the earth long. And I
remember while yet young, to have heard from
very old men, that in their youth, the winters
had been still colder, with deeper and longer
snows. In the year 1772, we had a snow two
feet deep in the champaign parts of Virginia,
and three feet in the counties next below the
mountains. That year is still marked in conversation
by the designation of “the year of
the deep snow.” But I know of no regular
diaries of the weather very far back. In latter
times, they might perhaps be found. While I
lived at Washington, I kept a diary, and by
recurring to that, I observe that from the winter
of 1802-3, to that of 1808-9, inclusive, the average
fall of snow of the seven winters was only
fourteen and a half inches, and that the ground
was covered but sixteen days in each winter
on an average of the whole. The maximum in
any one winter, during that period, was twenty-one
inches fall, and thirty-four days on the
ground.—
To Dr. Chapman. Washington ed. v, 487.
(M.
1809)
