Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1875-02-25
The Climate of Wisconsin Thousand
Years Hence.

"SOme ingenious writer's have suspected
that Europe was much colder formerly than it
is at present; and the most ancient discrip-
tons of the climate of Germany tend exceed
ingly to confirm this theory. The general
complaints of intense frost and eternal winter
are perhaps little to be regarded, since we
have no method of reducing to the accurate
standard of the thermometer, the feelings or
the expressions of an orator born in the hap
pier regions of Greece or Asia. But | shall
select two remarkable circumstances of less
equivocal nature
~ That great rivers which covered the
Roman provinces, the Rhine and the Danube,
were frequently frozen over, and capable of
supporting the most enormous weights.
The Barbarians, who often chose that
severe season for their inroads, transported,
without apprehension or danger, their numer-
Gus armies. their cavalry and their heavy
wagons over vast and solid bridge of ice.
Modern ages have not presented an instance
of like phenomena
(2l The reindeer, that useful animal, from
whom the savage of the North derives the
| best comforts of his dreary life, is of a con-
stitution that supports, and even requires, the
most intense cold.
He is found on the rock of Spitzberg, with
in ten degrees of the Pole; he seems to de-
| light IN the SHOWS of Lapland and Seberia
but at present he cannot subsist, much less
multiply, in any country to the south of the
Baltic. In the time of Caesar the reindeer,
as well as the elk and the wild bull, was a
native of the Hercynian forests, which then
overshadowed a great part of Germany and
Poland.
The modern improvements sufficiently ex>
plain the causes of the diminution of the cold.
These immense woods have been gradually
cleared, which intercepted from the earth the
rays of the sun. The morasses have been
drained, and, in proportion as the soil has
| been cultivated, the air has become more
| temperate. Canada at this day is an exact
picture of ancient Germany. Although stu-
ated in the same parallel with the finest pros
vinces of France and England, that country
| experiences the most rigorous cold. The
| reindee7s are very numerous, the ground IS
covered with deep and lasting snow, and the
great river of st. Lawrence is regularly frozen,
in a season when the waters of the Seine and
the Thames are usually free from ice."
The above is an extract from
"Gibbon's Decline and Fall OF the
Roman Empire" (See Vol. l, chap.
81. In this chapter he gives dis
cription Of ancient Germany. The
author wrote the same about 100
years ago. lie gives some strong
facts (f they are facts), to prove
that settlement, cultivation, clearing
off land and drainage mitigates and
softens the rigors of Northern
winter. Perhaps in 1000 years from
now, ice will be as rare on the sur
face of the Mississippi and Wisconsin
rivers, on the borders of Grant
county, as it is now on the Seine, or
Rhine-'hat is, ica strong enough
to support armies, Wagons and ar
tiIIery. We congratulate our pos
terity 1000 years hence who will
find December as pleasant as May,
and will hardly believe our weather
reports. 1t may be that reindeer
were found in C4nadn 100 years ago.
We have not heard of any of these
animals in those parts, nor does his
tory record that the reindeer ever
habited any part of North America.
But surely the present winter is cold
enough for their comfort as tar south
as Vicksburg or New Orleans. A
farm purchased in Alaska to>day
will produce cotton and sugar cane
in o thousand years from now. Will
any one invest trusting to the verac-
ity and Judgment of Mr. Gibbon?