The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1879-02-07
HARD WiNTERs

t~SPfANsSN AO'SuhUCk <Soe AOtOe
HARD WINTERS ~
After all, this has not been an exce..
tionally hard winter. In this city We have
had the severest cold known for twenty
seven years, that is to say since the memor.
abe season of 1850.51 and at the North
It mas been blowy, snowy and freeay for
two or three weeks. No doubt, if we had
not had the sure authority of the record TO
appeqi ~, tho oidsst iipfa hisa1t wou!a have.
insisted that it Is the worst mud coidess
season within the memory OF man. But tho
uses of the oldest inhabtant as meteoro-
logical register are exhausted. He is "played
out, !" as it were He is no longer an author
lty as to the past, or q prophet as to the
future. The thermometer has superseded
him for one purpose, and Old Probabilities
for the other. In fact, it was always known
to observing people that the oldest inhabi-
tant was delusivc authority as to the
meteorology ofpast times. Horace Walpole,
in one of his letters, remarks on the ten
dency of people always to find the current
season the worst, or the best, as the case
might be, that ever was known; to say that
the winter in question was the coolest, or
the summer the hottest, or that the frost
came later in the spring or earlier in tho
autumn than in any former year; yet these
same persons, he remarks, could not, for
the life of them, tell what kind of weather
it was the las; month, or even the last
week
The present winter, so far, has certainly
been cold and tempestuous, but it is not
half over yet, at least at the North, and it
may turn out in the end to be more than
usually mild. In New Orleans it has, in
fact been exceptionally cold, and as our
winter is nearly over, VIC arc justified by
the record in saying that it is one of the,
coolest and stormiest known during this
generation. But in the North aud North
west they have two months of winter before
them, aud those two months may be rela-
lively warm. Even the great cold of tho
last two weeks has been many times exceeded
NOTABLY in 1ST273, when hundreds of
persons in Iowa and Wisconsin sand Min
nesota perished in the tremendous snow
storms of December and January when a
score or more of school children with their
teacher were frozen to death in showed d-up
school house, and stage coach was caught
in driving tempest, and the horses, driver
and eight passengers, many days atterward
were found turned to blocks of ice.
The Kansas Journal, of January Goth.
1856, contained tho following: "On the
night of the 24th of December, 1855, the
Missouri River at this place was frozen
over. 1t is now nearly FIVE weeks that
the river has been highway for teams of
horses, mules and oxen. We put this fact
on record for coming years. We have
now had near seven weeks Of hard freezing
weather. fact unparalleled in the history
Of this country. People will hereafter
refer to the long, cold winter of 1885,"
On FEBRUARY 2, the Journal had the follow
ing "The cold of the past few weeks has
been general. From every part of America
from Halifax to Cuba we have accounts
and it is everywhere spoken of as the
| coolest ever known. At Memphis the
| citizens are putting up their ice, a circum-
stance unknown before. The floating leo
has reached the mouth of the Mississippi
fact unheard of, even to tradition. The
Brazos River, in Texas, is frozen sufficiently
hard for the crossing Of teams. In Cuba
they have real Northern winter. At st.
Paul, Minnesota, the thermometer has been
Al degrees below zero" The issue of the
9Th February contained this statement -
"On Sunday and Monday, Sd and 4th the
| thermometer stood % and 80 degrees
below Zero" In theissue of March / is
found the following: "The river at this
place broke up on Monday morning last,
the 25th of February, 1850, having been
closed sixty days"
In comparison with this the present
winter has been rather tropical than other
wise.-N. o. Pcayune.
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