The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-01-19


Wave In tho Air.
Our January thaw, eliminating in the
heavy and extensive rains in the Northern
States of Thursday, Friday and Saturday, has
passed of, and the Signal Service Bureau
warns us of the approach Of another
Arctic tidal wave in the air, by way of
the snow-covered Rocky Mountains Our
January thaw, with these assisting heavy
rains, has resulted in numerous destruc-
tive freshets from New England to the
Mississippi River, as our latest dispatches
from the Upper Hudson, the Delaware, the
Susquehanna and other rivers westward will
show. But if after these heavy rains the
late general thaw had continued another day
many millions of property would doubtless
have been destroyed which has been saved by
the speedy following of this freezing atmos-
pheric wave from the northwest checking the
fow OF the waters into our great rivers and
arresting and holding fast again their vast
bodies of drifting ice, which otherwise threat
ened the destruction of all impediments in
their course to tide water
The descent upon our Northern States,
therefore, of this January atmospheric wave
from the Arctic regions may be regarded as ga
blessing in disguise" The poor may suffer
from the cold; the increased prices of coal, by
retail, and of provisions may tell severely upon
our working classes; but the saving of mil
lions of supplies of oil kinds from the arrest
of the disastrous foundations otherwise threat
ened is a general blessing after all; for the
floods which menaced the valleys of the Della
ware, the Susquehanna, the Potomac, the
Shenandoah, the Ohio and the Mississippi and
their tributaries menaced work of destruc-
ton on the scale of the recent foundations of
Italy. But our escape may be only for short
time. Give us now two or three days of fierce
westerly winds and freezing skies and then
the reaction from the ocean with another
heavy snow and then universal thaw of o
week or SO, winding up in general down.
pouring of rain for day or two from the Mis-
sissippi to the Atlantic, and we shall still suf-
fer from more and heavier inundations than
have been experienced from any Winter in
this country since the city of New Amsterdam
was located by the Dutch.
Meantime the cold air wave from the north
west, the approach of which we announced
yesterday morning. is advancing upon us.
AT Sparta, Wis, yesterday the mercury was
frozen, and the spirit thermometer marked
perature ever reported from any point within
the jurisdiction of the United States, including
Alaska, up to Behring Strait But, again,
at La Crosse, Wis. the temperature fell to
thirty-one degrees below zero, to thirty-one
at st. Paul, and at Minneapolis, Mimi,
to thirty-four degrees below zero, while
as. far south as Memphis they had
it down to eight degrees below zero.
The breadth of this cold air wave,
therefore, covers the distance between
the cotton States and the Canadas. But
when it shall have passed away, what then?
Another blockading snow storm, we fear,
with oil its distractions to travel; but let us
hope for better things for ''while there is life
there is hope"
It is a remarkable fact, in this connec-
ton, that while, since Christmas, the railway
lines from the Mississippi to Maine have suf-
fered unparalleled blockadings, detentions
and lamentable accidents from snow drifts and
the Union Pacific, from Omaha to Great Salt
Lake, and none from that point on the Gen.
trail Pacific to the Sacramento Valley. Have
the SHOWS of this Winter, then, been lighter
than usual in the Rocky Mountains and in the
Sierra Nevada? No. From those immense
storms and avalanches of snow that have been
reported from Utah, and irIm the plentiful
supplies on the Sierra Nevada, the snow fall
along the whole line of these roads has been
actually heavier this Winter so far, than it was
last Winter. The memorable blockades of the
Union Pacific last year, moreover, were in
February and March, and they may be re-
peated, though it appears that the company
have profted from experience in providing
such safeguards and means for keeping the
track open as will enable them to overcome
even the heaviest snow fall and drifts of the
Rocky Mountain district of Sherman and
Cheyenne, from seven thousand to eight thou
sand feet above the sea.
In the Sierra Nevada chain the Winter
snow fall is from twenty to thirty feet but
the Central Pacific, along the one hundred
and fifty miles Of this declivity, from five
thousand to seven thousand feet above the
sea, has forty miles of snow galleries. the
magnificent pine forests of those mountains
furnishing them abundant timber Here is
the security of this road against snow block
ades Again, the snow does not drift in the
woods of the Sierra Nevadn. while over the
naked and windy wastes of the Rocky Noun
tains it drifts in favoring depressions to the
depth of forty feet. Against such impede
ments, if the road through from the Mis-
souri, to the Sacramento shall be kept open
for the closing half as it has been