78 2467 Meteorology Duijn N 1st half 18th cent
= Remarkable series of meteorological observations by Nicolaas Duijn, who deligently kept records of the weather over a period of 7 years between 1735-1742. He was one of quite a few people in the Netherlands who kept meteorological records between 1697 and 1860, occas. over periods of several decades (see F.W.C. Krecke, Het klimaat in Nederland, p.3). The winter of 1740 is reckoned to have been one of the coldest of the past 300 years. In his partly factual and partly anecdotal annotations Duijn writes about the lack of food and water, the exorbitant prices asked for groceries and buckets of water, and the resulting famine and death. Duijn's account supplies information about the cold circumstances in Amsterdam and surroundings. One of his observations is that the ice on the canals was so thick (up to 43 cm.) that there was no one to be found who was willing (even for a substantial payment) to cut and break the ice so that the city could be reached by boats again. Ice-cutters who had tried, found that their clothes froze on their bodies, and had to give up their work in order be defrosted indoors. Meat and vegetables froze (even indoors) within a few hours, adding to the misery. He also writes that the number of frozen corpses found in the streets of Amsterdam, suggested that the death toll in the rural areas of Holland would probably be very high. From other sources (i.a. Wikipedia) we know that passengers on horsedrawn coaches arrived frozen at their destination. Apart from a continuous series of general meteorological observations from the 1st of January to 10th of March, the report also contains thrice daily temperature measurements for 17 dates between 1 January and 24 February.