The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1883-03-15
How Cold Waves Travel.

Cold waves, so called-a name for
which we are indebted to recent meteoro.
logical science--do not appear to move,
in some instances, much faster than a
railroad express train. They vary, how
ever, in their rate of motion. Where do
they come from? 1t is not easy to say.
1t might be found, if one could travel
at express train speed from the mount
aims of Montana and the frozen regions
farther north, that the cold continued
all the way to eastern Alaska, and on to
Behring Strait, with even a greater de-
gree of intensity. In fact, the coolest
region is probably the wide expanse west,
and especially northwest of Hudson's
Bay, in the neighborhood of the mag
netic pole. A 'cold wave'' is wave of
heavy air, following the rareied track of
''low barometer" and changing the
rarefied track and milder atmosphere
(Which is usually also stormy to M of
clear, cold skies; a heavy air, full of tonic
power, and exhilarating and hunger
producing to sound and healthy animal
life. The establishment of the modern
Government weather observation sta
tions, with their appliances, including
the electric telegraph and the daily
press, has enabled the country to see and
comprehend something of the move
ments of these frequent cold waves. The
movement is as marked as the advance
of a veritable sea wave. 1t is one of the
impressive facts of meteorological phe-
nomena. The telegraph heralds its
start from the Rocky Mountains
Git always seems to begin there,
though in fact it rarely does-hav-
ing its origin much farther north
and its advance can be timed like
that of a railroad train. Its speed
varies from forty to sixty. or sometimes
even seventy miles ar hour; usually it
would seem about fifty. 1t rolls over
the country, a real wave, an aerial coun-
terpart, on the shore, of its congener.
the tidal wave OF the ocean; and its di-
rection is usually from the northwest to
the southeast. 1t sweeps slowly down
from the frozen wastes of the Asiatic
shore, and the equally rigid wilds of the
American mainland in the Arctic circle,
| to our Atlantic coast-in breadth reach
ing all the wayfrom Nova Scotia to Cape
Hatteras, and frequently making its
chill presence felt as far south as Florida.
The Bermudas which lie just south of
the Gulf Stream, a little over six hun
dred miles almost due east of Charles
ton-feel the influences of our .'cold
waves very perceptibly. That solitary
little group of small, ~low-lying coral
islands, which 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 and keeps them in spring foliage
all winter; but, while it finely tempers
and modihes the north wind, it cannot
quite rob it of all it's intrinsic character
and the result is a wind that may be at
times cool and frequently boisterous,
but never really cold; and those lonely
islands, surrounded by wide-reaching
coral reefs, have all winter a pleasant
climate of spring. That is almost all
that they, or the more southern islands
of the Bermudas, ever know of our win
ter ''cold waves These come in an
almost rhythnIical succession, and have
their causes, doubtless, as potent as those
of the oceans tides, which they strik-
Ingly resemble.-Boston Transcript.