The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1883-05-19
THE MAY FROST WAVE.

- y ever SAW SuCn OIHhSlCcuplc N'N+HN' W
fore at this season. Here it is beyond the
middle Of May and still too cold and wet
for corn planting" Remarks like these
greeted one at any corner few days ago
Farmers wear faces foot long and bust.
ness men look gloomy and discouraged
A failure OF the corn crop, they say, after
the short crop last year, Will be disastrous
to thebuslness of the country.
People easily forget, If the reader has
access to weather register of last year, or
two or three years past, let him look at II
and he will be surprised to see how much
the present weather is like that OF former
years. The first and second weeks OF May
year ago were quite as wet and disagree
able as they are this year, and 1t WAS on
the night Of the 18th of May, 1882, that
occurred that severe frost which came just
IN the nick OF time 10 ruin the cherry and
strawberry crop Of last year; and It was
on the 10th of May, 1881, that we had one
of those miserable cold storms from the
northeast, followed on the nth by dry,
cold northwest wind that blasted every
cherry blossom and half the apple bios.
SONS in the country, And going OaCk
year by year the curious inquirer will find
that the years are rare exceptions in which
we have not either had frost, or narrowly
escaped frost, somewhere between the 9th
and l4:h OF May.
Indeed among those who have given ut
tention to the subject though it seems
strangely to have escaped the notice of the
almanac makers, the singular retrogression
of temperature at this period has been no.
tccd from time immemOrial in widely Sc
parated parts Of the northern hemisphere.
Just as summer heat is expected to burst
forth and become established, lis march is
interrupted between the 9th and 1lth Of
May. The British meteOrologists find, with
rare exceptions, that cold period annual
~ sets in over their country, and in Russia
there is proverb that winters winds cease
to blow after May 18th. Many years ago
Humboldt, speaking of this anomalous
cold spell, said; 1T is much to be desired
that this phenomenon, which some have
felt inclined to attribute to the melting OF
of ice In the northeast of Europe, should be
also investigated In remote spots"
r. A. Proctor, the celebrated English
astronomer, in an able article on the sub
ject IN Longman's Magaztne, says:
THE occurrence Of certain spells of ex-
ccptionally cold weather in February,
April and May has long been recognized
as among the most mysterious of meteOro-
logical phenomena. Not IN every year. but
still so often that the change is recognized
by others than scientific observers, the
temperature falls from about the It'll to the
18th of February, from about the 10Th TO
the 18th of April, and from about the 9th
to the 18th of May. 1t had been thought
sufficiently strange that tins should have
been noted, as Kaemltz long since pointed
out, throughout the whole of Europe; and
Erman had been led by this evidence
dibuti w hSNIiOS thS pttuiihI Ivy w oOlIC
extra terrestrial cause. When 1t Is found
that the peculiarly is observable in North
America also, the evidence in favor of
some cOsmlcal cause for the phenomenon
is greatly strengthened"
Prof, Proctor adds that moi only is the
phenomenon observed both IN Europe and
North America, but he has information
that the relatively cool weather of Februa-
ry, April and May also occurs in the south
ern hemisphere, from which he regards il
as conclusive that the phenomenon Is to be
attributed to extra terrestrial or "cosmical"
causes; and then he goes into long ar.
gument, which we need not follow, to show
that the cold snaps in question are caused
by the passage, each year at the dates indi-
Gated OF huge trains of meteors between
the earth and the sun, in the shadow OF
which the earth is at the time to certain
extent chilled.
The FREE TRADER is entirely too mod
est to venture an opinion as to the tenabili-
ty of this theory. 1t observes, however
that 1t differs from that Of the meteorologist
of the New York Hersld, who, in an arti
Gle on this same regularly recurring May
cold snap accounts for 1t easily as follows:
The explanation for this climatic anon
ally is, doubtless, that In the first week in
May the suns force within the Arctic circle
Is sufficient to melt millions OF tons of ice
and snow, thus causing the deciued chill
ing OF the atmosphere IN high latitudes
which IN a few days finds its way to Eu-
rope and the United States.
1t is sufficient for our purpose to have
established the fact Of the periodicity OF
the May frost wave, and that there is moth
ing about 1t exceptional or unusual, what
eyer may be the occult cause or causes OF
the phenomenon.
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AT the Presbyterian church tomorrow
morning Rev. Madison c. Peters will deliver
the third sermon In the series on "The
Things Hard to Understand in the Old Tesla
ment;" in the evening, as the Hair OF Old
Orthodoxy Getting Gray"
-Sse-