The New York herald., 1876-02-10
A Season OF PeriI-UnheaIthy weather

Season OF Peril-Unhealthy Weather.
themselves that they are being spared the
miseries of cold winter snow blockaded
streets and all the other etceteras of abomi-
nation which they love to croak about, forget
that under the cloak Of mildness and almost
genial warmth the winter is working more
evil than we care to contemplate. Winter is
the season during which nature rests from
her labors. Under the blanket of
snow the exhausted earth recuperates her
powers and prepares for the labor of pro-
ducng in season the flowers and fruits that
gladden. the eye in the spring and summer
The decaying vegetation with which autumn
strews the ground is in the winter time re-
absorbed by the soil and enriches it, while
the process of putrefaction issrendered
innocuous by frost. The poisonous gases
which would permeate the atmosphere dur
ing the season of decay are gathered by
the snowdakes and carried back to the earth
to add to its fertility in the spring. These
poisonous fumes unless so imprisoned, be-
come the fatal sources of such epidemics
as are found in every instance to
accompany warm winters. We therefore
view with alarm the advance of winter
without its natural accompaniment of cold
weather and snow. Indeed, the fatal spread
of contagious diseases, such as diphtheria
and smallpox, in New York and its vicinity,
furnishes terrible proof that we are hasty In
congratulating ourselves on the mildness of
the winter.
1t is an axiom in meteorology that ex-
tremes of temperature are counterbalanced
by extremes in each year. so that the mean
temperature from year to year rarely varies
more than few degrees. Thus, if we have
a warm winter, we must look on it as a COM
pensation, as it were for an abnor-
mally cold season either in the past year
or to be experienced in the one COM
ing We had cold weather during the
spring of 1875, and the summer months
were not as warm as in the two or three years
previous. 1t is reasonable, therefore, to sup
pose that we are now receiving liberal in
stalment of the heat which we were deprived
of in 1875. Another very important fact is to
be considered when we attempt to
account for this extraordinary season.
During the past year, and even up to
the middle of January of this year, the
American continent has been violently
shaken, from San Francisco TO the Missis-
sippi Valley, by earthquakes, and the enor-
nous amount of heat which the force of
the convulsions represented was and con-
tinues to be liberated into our atmos-
phere, thus materially affecting its
temperature all over the continent. In New
York the weather is entirely governed by
conditions and causes arising or existing to
the westward. We must, therefore, pre-
sumo that if the terrestrial shakings referred
to can affect the temperature of the air in
their vicinity we owe to them our warm but
unhealthy winter.
The latest advices from the Pacific coast
inform us of the approach eastward of
storm. The rate Of progress of this meteor
will be watched with the greatest interest by
scientific men, because its movements, al
though governed by well known laws, will
indicate clearly the atmospheric conditions
within the immediate line of its advance.
Storms of this character are as sensitive to
the presence of atmospheric or topographi-
cal barriers to its progress as a billiard ball
on perfectly level table. 1t is detected to
the right or left as the obstruction acts on it;
but. being always under the influence of the
initial force which gives it an eastward move