Mercury and Venus, the thermometer in this locality fell to 17 deg., and in London to 13.
On Saturday morning (when Saturn was also stationary) the margin of the sea at high water for three or four hundred feet from the shore, appeared, (as seen from a distance) as if covered with some oily substance, but on viewing it from a closer standpoint, the strange appearance was caused by small ice crystals. As the tide receded, the icy particles were left on the beach and sands like salt or snow, but when tasted they seemed to have lost their saline character. The masses were immensely thick round about the rocks and the general contour of the surface was wave-like, as though the turbid waves of the sea congested before they could return, notwithstanding that when the thermometer was place in the mass it recorded a temperature of 5 degrees of frost only, whilst in the open air it had marked 16 degrees, and during the whole day there never was less than 10 deg. of frost. There was a piercingly cold east wind and cloudy sky from morning till night; but on Sunday, after a minimum temperature of 15 deg. (17 deg. of frost) the weather became clear and bright, but the maximum temperature did not exceed 23 deg. On that day the marine phenomenon was even more extraordinary. The whole shore was coated with crystallized foam, while the advancing tide pushed upwards a ridge of the same two or three feet in thickness. The wind was less strong than on the preceding day, but that alone would not account for a waveless sea. The shingle was concreted into a hard mass, and the Priory stream was frozen. The ponds too, on the West hill, then existing, and known as the Eft Pond, (on the north-west side of the Castle mound) and French’s Pond (at the top of Croft road, now the site of the Board schools) were frozen to a thickness of 6 to 8 inches. On the following days, Monday to Thursday, many hundreds of conger eels were seen floating on the sea, whilst a large number came also to the shore. Some of the ferry-boats and small fishing-boats put off and took on board from 100 to 200 each, as well as some other fish, that were similarly affected by the intense cold. Some fishermen who were returning from Brighton on Sunday suffered greatly, and one of them had his “nor-wester” frozen to his head. During the month of February there were no fewer than 18 so-called aspects of the refrigerating planets Saturn and Herschel, the effects of which were to make it the coldest February within living memory. There were 25 frosty nights, and the average temperature collected from 112 observations, was 10 deg. below the general mean of that month.
A phenominal(sic) frost also occurred on the 19th and 20th of the preceding month (January), when the salt water pools on the sands were frozen, and as the tide rose the ice flowed in upon the beach. On the night of the 19th was the minimum tem-
