2721. Robert Southey to John Rickman [fragment], [c. 21 February 1816] ⁠* 

We have had an Avalanche from Skiddaw, of which so little has been heard that tho it is two months old I never went to see it till this day. An immense mass of snow came rolling down, & a mass of wreck after it, sufficient to bury Applethwaite beck for two or three hundred yards, the stream is now making its way under this mass, – that is under an arch of snow, – the crust in many places has fallen in, & the scene is a very singular one. The Avalanche was large enough to have buried a village had there been one there [remainder of MS missing]