The news and herald. (Winnsboro, S.C.) 1877-1900, 1883-04-24
How Cold Waves Travel.

Cold waves, 80 calied-a name fol-
which we are Indebted to recent mete.
geological science--do not appear to
move IN some instances, much faster
than railroad express train. They
vary, however, in their rate of motion,
Where do they come froln2 It is not
easy to say. 1t might be found, if one
could travel at express train speed from
the mountains Of Montana and the
frozen regions farther north, that the
cold continued all the way to eastern
Alaska and on to Behring Straits, with
even greater degree of intensity. In
fact, the coldest region is'probably the
wide eXpanse west, and especially north
west of Hudson's Bay, in the neighbor-
hood Of the magnetic pole. A "cold
wave" Is wave of heavy air, following
the rarefied track of Glow barometer. >
and changing the rarefied track and
milder atmosphere (which is usually also
stormy to one Of clear, cold skies, a
heavy air, full Of tonic power, and ex-
hilarating and hunger-producing to
sound and healthy animal life. The
establishment of the modern Govern
ment weather observation stations, with
their appliances, including the electric
telegraph and the daily press, has en-
abled the country to see and cOmpre-
hend something of the movements of
these frequent cold waves. The move
ment is as marked as the advance of a
vcritable sea Maye. 1t is one of the
impressive facts of meteorological phe-
nomena. The telegraph heralds it's start
from the Rocky Mountains lit always
seems to begin there, though in fact it
rarely does-<having it's origin much
farther north and it's advance can be
timed like that Of a railroad train. Its
speed varies from forty to sixty, or some-
times even seventy miles an hour:
usually it would seem about fifty. It
rolls over the country, q real wave, an
aerial counterpart, on the shore, Of it's
congener, the tidal wave of the ocean;
and Its diroetion' is usually from the
slowly down from GIG ff6zon II Wastes 81
the Asiatic shore, and the equally frigid
wilds of the American mainland in the
Arctic circle, to our Atlantic coast-in
breadth reaching all the way from Nova
Scotia to Cape Hatteras, and frequently
making it's chill presence felt as far
south as Florida. The Bermudas-
which lie just south of the Gulf Stream,
a little over six hundred miles almost
due east of Charleston-feel the inhu-
ences of our "cold waves' very percep-
tibly. That solitary little group of small,
low-lying coral islands, which can be
can be reached by steamer from New
York in the same time it would take to
go to Savannah, happen to lie on the
leeward side of the Gulf Stream; and
that great thermal current of the ocean
forever saves them from frost keeps them
III spring foliage all winter; but, while
it finely tempers and modiies the north
wind It cannot quite rob it Of All its in
trinsic character-and the result is a
wind that may be at times cool and fre-
quently boisterous, but never really cold;
and those lonely islands, surrounded by
wide-reaching coral reefs, have all win
ter pleasant climate of spring. That
is almost all that they, or the more
southern islands of the Bermudas, ever
know of our winter "cold waves.n
These come in an almost rhythmical
succession, and have their causes, doubt
less, as potent as those of the oceans
tides, which they strikingly resemble.