Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1873-03-11
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The New York Herald has an editorial af-
fording some comfort to sufferers with the ex-
tseme cold of the resent winter. 1t appears
that we are highly favored in this age as to
climate in comparison with former ages. The
Herald says:
The winter now drawing to close has had
few parallels in the later climatic history OF
this country. Like the winter OF 1872 IL,
which broke in SO prematurely upon the
French campaign in Russia, the present cold
season came early in December. The in
tensely low temperatures through which we
have passed may serve to show that these bo-
real phenomena are not to be altogether con-
fined to q colonial primeval age.
We know that in the remote periods of Eu-
ropean civilization the climate Of the Old
World was much colder than it now is. The
Italian sky now the boast for all that Is
soft and genial, must have worn forboding
and very different aspect when the classic an
nalists describe the streets of Rome as block
ed with ice and snow, the Tiber as solidly
frozen over, and when the tender herds were
the prey of frosts. The fairest valleys Of
Central Europe, now famous for their verdure
and vintage, were in those early periods the
abode of the Arctic elk and reindeer; and the
streams which drained them, as Gibbon tells
us, were annually covered with firm bridges
of ice, which the barbarian armies securely
crossed Even in comparatively modern times
intense cold has visited large portions of Eu-
rope. In 1868 the Baltic was clothed with an
immense sheet Of ice, over which Charles Y.
marched his entire army from Holstein to
Denmark, distance of fifty miles. There
| are not wanting several instances, extending
as far as 1923, when the Thames was SO thick
l., =, {,,rv ,isla safn
| tainment to large fairs, while just after our
Western country was settled, at the close Of
the last century, the ice covered sea around
Holland was the theatre of winters cam.
paign.
Arago, the distinguished French physicist,
attempted TO argue from the collected annals
of extreme winters that the climate of the
continents had in the lapse of ages of the
worlds physical lite undergone no changes.
But in the light Of the present century, now
nearly three quarters passed, such view
must be discarded. Whether we accept the
ten year cycle of hot and cid years, or
whether we adopt the cycle of forty years. in
dicated by the rigorous winters of 1909, l74o,
1889, 1880 and 1871 -, including the present,
we find great mitigation in the cold. No win
ter in the nineteenth century will compare in
severity with many that can be named in the
previous, the medieval and classic periods, in
which latter Ovid mentions the fact that the
waves of the Euxine. OF Black Sea were
strongly congealed.
| The colonial records of America give but
| very meagrc accounts of accurate thermome-
trio data, but few facts show that our eli
| mate, cold as this winter has been, is not so
rigorous as when the present century opened.
Mr.. Jefferson states, in his valuable papers,
that in 1880 the Chesapeake Bay was frozen
solid from its head to the mouth of the Poto-
mac River. and at Annapolis, where it is more
than five miles between the nearest points of
land, the ice was 80 firm tina. loaded carriages
went over it. From this and other phenom-
email occurrences the Virginia philosopher in
ferred that when the country was cleared the
extreme cold would be diminished. The old
records Of American climate, such as those
;. of Rush and Volney, indicate winters of
greater severity than now occur. Samuel
/ Williams Of Harvard, the learned author of a
series Of thermometric observations during
the last part of the previous century, compu-
ted the change of winter climate at Boston at
ten or twelve degrees from 1880 to 1888. As
before intimated, there are no thermometric
records sufficiently comprehensive 10 afford
inferential conclusions as to climatic change
in the West and the Valley of the Mississp-
pi; but the early accounts of the first settlers
and explorers all 20 to show the extremes Of
cold greater than are now experienced. The
Canadian settlers, until after the middle of
the last century, found the climate around
Quebec too severe for corn to ripen.
1t is certain that our coolest winters since
1900 have not attained the low temperatures
of the preceding five decades, In one of which.
as we have seen, the Chesapeake Bay was
frozen over. The winter of 1856 was marked
by extraordinary and extensive refrigeration,
holding the rivers from 81. Louis to Phil
adelphia In its icy grip from December TO
late in March; but this was an exception, and
yet can hardly be ranked with the early colo
NAL winters in point of intensity.
The attempt has been made to explain these
changes of terrestrial climate by the changes
which man has wrought upon the forest COW
cred face Of the Continent and drainage of
the soil, resulting in diminished rainfall and
snowfall. Whether this be theoretically cor
rect or not the facts remain the same; and
they furnish additional proof that the aerial
shell of the earth is undergoing physical
change, as we'll as the solid crust and the
deep sea beds.