The "Great Snow of 1717," one of the low points of the Little Ice Age. At the time, Joshua Hampsted of New London observed in his diary that "... the snow is drove in some places 10 to 12 feet deep. " This is the heaviest snowfall ever recorded in Connecticut.

of winter weather during this period. The first snow of the season often fell as early as October and the last snow as late as May. The Connecti-cut River froze over solidly every winter, sometimes as early as Novem-ber, and Long Island Sound - a salt water body - also occasionally froze. Many geologists and climatologists feel that the warmer weather of recent years causes sea level to rise for two reasons. First, climatic warming melts back the polar ice caps, releasing more water to the oceans. Second, the warmer climate heats ocean water, causing it to expand and rise up a bit.

In the more distant future, most geologists expect glaciation even-tually to return to New England. Glaciation is thought to operate on a long cycle. It takes the climatic pendulum about 100,000 years to swing through the entire cycle of advance and retreat. The pendulum is near its warm inter-glacial apex for only about 25,000 of the 100,000 years. The present inter-glacial period began 18,000 years ago, so we can expect a return of an ice age to North America in some 5-7,000 years.

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