Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/342

328 In Barber's &quot;Historical Collections,&quot; p. 476, there is a letter by Cotton Mather dated &quot;Boston, 10th Dec., 1717,&quot; describing the great snow of the preceding February, from which I quote: &quot;On the twentieth of the last February there came on a snow, which being added unto what had covered the ground a few days before, made a thicker mantle for our mother than what was usual. And the storm with it was, for the following day, so violent as to make all communication between the neighbors everywhere to cease. People, for some hours, could not pass from one side of a street to another.&quot;

&quot;On the twenty-fourth day of the month came Pelion upon Ossa. Another snow came on, which almost buried the memory of the former, with a storm so famous that Heaven laid an interdict on the religious assemblies through out the country on the Lord's day, the like whereunto had never been seen before. The Indians near an hundred years old affirm that their fathers never told them of anything that equaled it. Vast numbers of cattle were destroyed in this calamity, whereof some there were of the stranger [stronger?] sort, were found standing dead on their legs, as if they had been alive, many weeks after when the snow melted away. And others had their eyes glazed over with ice at such a rate, that being