Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/192

 portion of rain, and fog and damp, is left for the more inland situations. In this way we can easily account for the quantity of rain which falls in Bristol and its vicinity, being considerably less than in any of the more westerly districts, not averaging more than twenty-four inches; and for the smaller depth of snow at Bristol than in most other parts of the Kingdom. There have, in fact, been winters in which none whatever has been observed to fall; many, in which that which did fall, dissolved the instant it touched the ground; and four or five winters have passed in succession, in which it would have been impossible to make a snow-ball; and this, too, while in almost every other part of the Kingdom, the snow lay to a considerable depth. The deepest snow at Bristol, within our remembrance, was in 1795 and 1813. In both these winters. the snow, on the average, where it was not drifted nor partially blown off, was from ten to twelve inches deep, which, although incommodious on the roads the first morning, was not sufficient to interrupt, nor materially to retard travelling; while in all other directions, east, west, north and south, the depth of the snow and blocking up of the roads, were the theme of every letter and every newspaper. In the last of these years, the roads in Devonshire were for days impassable, and the snow in the streets of Exeter was reported to reach to the second story.

The difference between the temperature of Bristol and most other places in the Kingdom, is not less remarkable, particularly in very cold winters. In 1795, for example, the thermometer was observed in the various towns from Margate to Brighton and