18 February 1856 – 24 February 1856

Measure snow again, on account of what fell on 17th. West of railroad, 15+ +2; east of railroad, 124-+2; average of both, 14+2=16; Trillium Wood, 183 +2=20$. The great body of the last snow appears to have settled under the east side of the rail- road. ‘There are five and one half inches more in the wood than on the 12th, and I think this is about the average of what fell on the 17th (night and day). Ac- cordingly, the snow has been deeper since the 17th than before this winter. I think if the drifts could be fairly measured it might be found to be seventeen or eighteen inches deep on a level. This snow, you may say, is all drifted, for in the fields east of the railroad there is not so much as there was a week ago, while west there is about four inches more.

P. M. — To Assabet stone bridge and home on river. It is a pleasant and warm afternoon, and the snow is melting. Yet the river is still perfectly closed (as it has been for many weeks), both against Merrick’s and in the Assabet, excepting directly under this upper stone bridge and probably at mouth of Loring’s Brook. I am surprised that the warm weather within ten days has not caused the river to open at Merrick’s, but it was too thick to be melted. Now first, the snow melting and the ice beginning to soften, I see those slender grayish-winged insects creeping with closed wings over the snow-clad ice,— Perla (?). On all parts of ~ the river. Have seen none before, this winter.) — Just below this bridge begins an otter-track, several days old yet very distinct, which I trace half a mile down the river. In the snow less than an inch deep, on the ice, each foot makes a track three inches wide, apparently enlarged in melting, and the whole four appear thus: The clear interval, six- oS © ah teen inches; the length o occu- pied by the four feet, fourteen inches. It looks as if some one had dragged a round timber down the middle of the river a day or two since, which bounced as it went. There is now a crack running down the middle of the river, and it is slightly elevated there, owing, prob- ably, to the increasing temperature.

Dr. Jarvis tells me that he thinks there was as much snow as this in 35, when he lived in the Parkman house and drove in his sleigh from November 23d to March 30th excepting one day.