The tribune. [volume] (Beaufort, S.C.) 1874-1876, 1874-12-09
WHAT WE MAY EXPECT.

WHAT WE MAY EXPECT.
| Lato Weather Anomalies and Prog
nosties OF tho Coming Winter.
The eccentric weather through which
the country has been passing for some
months constitutes memorable me-
teorologic cycle, Of which we have not
seen the end. Since the early part Of
July nearly every section has been
visited by thermal extremes and excess
sive droughts, which have fingered into
the present month and bid fair to leave
their impress on the approaching win
ter. That the great continents under
go cyclical changes of climate by no
means inappreciable is q matter Of his
toric record too familiar to be ignored.
In modern times, as in 1867 and 1868,
these non. periodic vicissitudes have
been sensibly felt. In the year Just
named the rainless season was 80
marked in Central Europe that the
Seine, in Paris, shrunk to q mere
shadow of its usual self, and portions
of the bed of the Rhine, never before
dried up, were left uncovered. Strange
to say, simultaneously, however, the
higher than its mean level as deter
y
In the few years preceding 1910 the
rainfall was so large in Pennsylvania
that an American geologist showed that
had the same extended to the lake
region, the inland waters, in the alb
sence Of new outlets, would have risen
twenty-nine feet above their normal
height.
The extraordinary dryness of the
summer and autumn of 1874 on this
continent has had its compensation ap-
parently in the abnormal rainfall Of an
opposite continent in the same hemis-
phere. While the Ohio and Mississippi
have been sluggishly coursing their
half-emptied channels the Nile has
been pouring ita tnrrential roaring
floods over the inundated plains Of
Egypt as it has hardly been known to
do from time immemorial Early In
July last the great African river began
to rise rapidly (at the very time our
American rivers began to falI and COM
tinued 30 to do till it reached, on the
11th Of September, the almost unpreoe-
dented height of twenty-nine feet At
till the 7th Of October, when sn In
crease OF three feet would have put all
the Delta of Egypt under the rushing,
yellow tide. Still farther east the
heavy rains in India, the autumnal cy-
clones in tho Bay of Bengal and the
terrible typhoons which recently swept
over Nagasaki and Hong Kong evidence
conditions of excessive humidity on the
opposite side of the Northern Hemis-
phere, balancing the excessive aridity
prevailing in the United States. Such
physical changes appear anomalous
enough, especially when we contrast
those which caused the Bengal famine
in 1873 and the floods in 1874. Are
they due to regular cyclical causes, re-
curing in supra-annual periods So
it would seem and it also seems likely
that these extraordinary phenomena
travel slowly around the globe, some
what as the ordinary storm does. The
attempt has been made to trace hot and
cold years to the variations of suh.spot
frequency, and eminent scientists have
contended that the sun-spot periods are
followed by corresponding climatic
changes on the earth.
But, however, this may be. the alb
normal seasons We have experienced
are directly traceable to the variations
of atmospheric pressure on the earth.
Thus, according to known laws of the
atmosphere, the abnormal prevalence
of hot southerly winds on any conti-
nent north of the equator proves that
there has been an aerial depression OF
long standing in the ocean west Of 1t
and similar excess of cold northerly
winds argues an excess of pressure. II
these long standing high and low pres
sures move from west to east, in the
middle latitudes, as transient cyclones
and anti-cyclones are known to do, we
have an easy and obvious explanation
| of the contrasts of weather on oppos-
| ing sides of the Northern Hem
isphere in the same year.
Without dwelling on the theoretical
aspects of these weather anomalies it
is evident the present year must close
with great deficiency of moisture In
the soil of the United States east OF the
Rocky mountains. The winter and
spring rains of 1876 may restore the
water of which the rocks and springs
have been exhausted by the summer
aud autumn droughts and thus prepare
the ground for agriculture. But in the
meantime the water-courses must be
scantily filed, the wells low and the
supterranean fountains but half re-
plenished. In q word, the continent
is now in the condition of thorough
ly drained field. The effect of such
dryness, however, will be to check the
chilling evaporation Of the soil, and
! thus, in some measure, to mitigate the
rigors of the approaching winter.