The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1884-04-19
The Land Of the Blizzard.

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insignificant mention Of the cir
eumstances attending the freezing
to death of a family, and there is
on the part Of. everybody a mani.
fest disposition to say as little as
possible about such occurrences.
Nearly every man woman and
child in Dakota is a landowner.
and all, therefore, have a personal
interest in keeping up the grand
delnsion that, while it may be
colder in this latitude than it Ia
further south, "You don't feel il. y
Men bury their frozen wives, chill.
dren and other relatives and stran.
gers with many self comforting
observations on the mysterious
dispensations of Providence, and
boom their town all the harder
the next day. Every little collec.
tion Of wooden huts calling itself
q city boasts of one or more daily
papers, but these ponderous or
gans of real estate agent and tax
collector find no room to give
more than a nero mention of oc-
currences which elsewhere in this
country would possess startling
interest. Ii a man or a woman
and child disappear, the newspa.
per is good enough to chronicle
the fact, and to express the fear
that they may have perished in
the storm. In the spring, when
skeletons begin to peep out from
the diminishing snowbanks. the
discovery of the remains is usu ally
dismissed in three lines, as "prob.
ably lost in one of last winters
blizzard's." To dilats upon any
Of these little incidents of life in
the frozen Northwest would be
rank treason. If newspapers in
other parts of the country wish to
learn the facts, they must send
their own men after them, for no
resident can see more than a mere
'natural death" notice in any such
occurrence. Sometimes an enthu-
siastic railroad telegrapher, i'm
pressed with and surprised at the
fact that with tho mercury forty
five degrees below zero ho is still
alive, telegraphs the information
abroad, but denials are promptly
sent out from forty different
points. If o statement gets on the
wires that family has been fro
zen to death, q stage lost, or q
mail carrier buried in the SHOWS,
somebody will deny 1t from a point
800 miles away, where nothing Is
known about it. II is a fact, new
ertheless, that dozens of people
have been lost in the storms here
during the past winter, and the
winter has not been unusually Sc
we're, either.
A snowfall which in some local
tiles would scarcely make goot
sleighing, becomes in this region
foe to human life of almost incon
ceivable fury. The flakes are al
ways small and dry, and borne
along by winds of such power al
to make locomotion almost impos
sible; they cut the flesh like "a
zprs. The blizzard comes mp sud
denly, like a tornado, wrapping
the earth in semi-darkness, ant
yet giving everything the appear
ance of whiteness. Objects a doz
en- yards away are shut out iron
view, and the wayfarer is bliude'
and stifed by the wiizzing cloud
which envelop him. In thirty min
utes from the beginning Of one 0
these storms 1t is hard to tel
whether there is one foot or fiv
feet of snow, and whether, in fact
the greater part IL on the groun'
or in the air. When o blizzar'
once attacks q section 1t grow
cold very rapidly, and added !
the terrors of people who may b
caught in It on the open prairie, |
the extreme probability that the
will freeze to death. AS nothln
can prevent man from losing hl
way in q blizzard, so nothing !
the shape of clothing can preven
his freezing to death If he canno
find shelter from the cold whic
follows. 1t is very difficult to te
Just when 1T stops showing. In
wind keeps the air filed with ic
particles long after the cloud
have passed away, and SO furious
: ly is the light snow driven by tn
gale that even then the vision !
almost as circumscribed as before
: A stranger experiencing thi
stage of blizzard would protes
he never saw it snow so fast, ou
in the momentary lulls of the win
he would see the cloudless sk
and know that the binding bias
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