Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1884-09-11
GREENLAND ICE PACKS.

The report Of the ice packs near Green
land, just brought by the bark FHuoruae to
Philadelphia, clears up the mystery OF the
early efflux Of ice on the Atlantic this year.
The barks Flo.orine and Silica arrived at
Arsuk, Fiord, April 8, from Hamburg, and
took refuge in the harbor of Kyrtalk. The
Silica, after having been driven north to
latitude 63 degrees, longitude 81 degrees
west, encountered broad ice belt and SUBJ
sequently sailed along pack fifty miles,
which was so high that one could not see
over it. The superintendent of the mines
at Ivigtut, South Greenland, stated that the
past winter has been extraordinarily ); severe e
for frost, snow and gales, and the adjacent
ford froze deeper and further out from shore
than ever before.
Fortunately for the navigation OF the
Arctic seas beyond the great rush of heavy
| ice from Davis Strait ceased after May 4,
and the FiuOriae encountered no ice in COM
ing southwark. This fact suggests that the
ice masses in the approaches to Smiths
Sound may have thinned out in some de-
gree by the time the relief Steamers-the
| Thetis, the Bear and the Alert-reached that
latitude. 1t may, however, be found that
the extraordinary stream of ice which for
some months has been moving off the Lab
rador coast, will not be exhausted till the
middle of next month.
The exceptional iciness of the Greenland
seas last winter may have been, us DIR. John
Rae has recently suggested, the indirect
cause Of the exceptionally mild winter OF
1884, in the British Islands. The natural ef-
feet cf so large q flow of cold water from
the north, meeting the warm Gulf stream
at right angles, says an English explorer,
would "not only be to defect the latter to
the southwark Of its usual course, causing
it to strike our shores further south, but also
in much greater volume, because q much
creased Quantity from the Arctic" This
reasoning is sound, but it would seem as if
both the phenomenal glacial flow west of
Greenland and the mild British winter are
rather to be ascribed to one cause.-The prev
alence of vast cyclOnic area of lower ba-
rometer over and east of Iceland, which
would induce powerful polar or northwest
erly winds in Baffin's Bay, and equally
strong equatorial currents over the British
Islands. If this be the case, as the present
summer advances and the seas northeast OF
Iceland grow warmer, this area will move
farther to the eastward, possibly subjecting
sional boreal winds, which may be injurious
to the grain crOps.-N. Y. Heratd.
the poison of cholera may be, it is contained
primarily in the discharges of the sick; and
these are only dangerous after they have
undergone some kind Of fermentation. BY
far the commonest breeding place of the
poison is the soil into which these diSchar
ges find their way; favored by "a due amount
of heat and moisture, they ferment in some
peculiar way, the virulent substance in them
multiplies Il hundredfOld and gets carried
into wells and water-courses, or even rises
into the atmosphere over some filth-sodden
spot. There is always danger from well
water in time Of cholera, and sometimes
there is risk of some feeder of great res
ervoir being tainted. But the water theory
is not enough. The poison of cholera may
rise from the ground into the air and be in
hailed with the breath, but that happens only
over the spot of ground sodden with the
cholera discharges, or in rooms or ships
hold, where there has been the grossest neg
lect of cleanliness and of disinfection. Chol-
era poison can act only within short range
of its breeding place: The old notion of
era waves" are the merest fables. But
there is one other principal way in which
cholera spreads that ought never to be for
gotten. The poison will cling for weeks or
months to the befouled linen, bedding and
clothes of the sick if these are put away
unwashed, thrust hastily into boxes, or tied
up in bundles-the poor being none too will
ling to part with what little effects they,
have-then we need not be surprised if
cholera energies in its most virulent form
from such boxes and bundles re-opened
when things are about to return to their Or
dinary course. 1t is not always the first
year of cholera but it may be the second,
and even the third or fourth, that makes
the worst havoc. Whenit went to Italy di-
rect from Mecca in 1865 it carried off $4,000
that year; it almost died out in the winter
and spring, revived little in the autumn
of 1866, appeared to die out once more in
the winter following, but in 1867, with no
fresh importation from the East, it broke
out so universally and so disastrously that
900 people in Italy died of it.