Sometimes, though very rarely, to upward of 100 then comes a thunder gust,
which restores the air to it's usual summer temperature, till another
three days period of excessive heat begins and ends in the same manner, at
intervals, through the season. The succession of the degree of cold in
winter is exactly the same: I never knew the excess exceed three days; not
that we have then a thaw but that the weather is moderate, till another
excess commences of three days.
On these occasions the mercury _sometimes_ descends to 10 or 12 degrees
below 0. Rivers a mile broad are frozen over in one night, and the bay of
Chesapeak traversed in waggons and sleighs!
Though this climate, compared with that of England, is not in my opinion
on the whole so good, yet it possesses many advantages, such as the
clearness of the atmosphere, greater equality of the length of the days,
and _certainty_ of settled weather; for though the transitions are more
_violent_, they are by no means so _frequent_ as in England; where you
have the wind from every point of the compass, and experience all the
seasons of the year in twenty-four hours!
Recollect these observations on the climate of America are confined to the
_middle states_, including Virginia in this description.
