Morning journal and courier., 1885-01-03
Winter in the Northwest.

[St Paul Correspondence of the Philadelphia Times.
 It is droll to see the transformation in the street scenes after the cold weather sets in. Everybody who has much to do out of doors wears a fur great-coat coming down to his heels Buffalo skin is the common material, but almost every animal capable of furnish ing @ furry cuticle is brought into requisi- tion. One must be an expert in furs to rec ognize them all. There are bear-skin coats, wolf-skin coats, fox-skin coats, lynx-skin coats, sealskin coats. otter-skin coats and even dog-skin coats. The furry procession that moves downtown of cold morning is a curious sight to a stranger from less rigid cline. He might well imagine that me- nagerie had broken loose and that the ani mals had adopted the biped style of locomo- tion. The illusion is increased by the huge fur caps and enormous fur mittens worn. Careful preparations for the cold season begin about the first of November. Every tolerably we'll built house is provided with a duplicate set of windows, which lie in the cellar from April to November and are then hung outside the regular windows, to leave few inches of air space between. An aperture in the sash closed by slat is provi- ded for ventilating purposes, or, better still, one or the pau6S IS uldu0 lO open OH uluHGS. Storm-doors are hung and the weather-strip man does thriving business. All cracks and crannies through which the searching north wind might find its way are stopped up. Great quantities of coal are put into the cellars. Pennsylvania anthracite is the favorite domestic fuel, and it costs from nine to ten dollars ton, and you burn twice as much of it as you would in Philadelphia or New York. The expense of warming house is formidable item in the domestic budget. Ohio block coal is burned in grates and also the inferior bituminous coal from Iowa, and considerable hard wood is used, but for the furnace and the big self-feeding stoves there is nothing like anthracite. Stoves, by the way are of enormous size, reaching up near ly to the ceilings. Everything points to severe struggle with the frost Human in genuity gets the better of the struggle, how ever, and it is possible to live here with as much comfort during the cold season in any city in the East. Indeed, I have found that the places where one suffers most in the winter are in attitudes like that of South Carolina, where no reasonable preparations are made for winter.
 have spoken of the preparations for win ter here in the city. The reader may ask, ''What do the people out on the bleak prai- ries in the little claim shanties do to make existence tolerable?" The common protec- tion against the piercing winds is the tarred building paper, which, in well-construeted houses is nailed upon the studding inside of the weather-boarding. Cheap shanties are covered on the outside with this paper fast ened on in long sheets by narrow cleats of wood nailed over the joints. A building so encased has an ugly look but it is blizzard proof The thin board walls, however, are poor defense against the still cold, and many settlers surround their dwellings with thick entertainments of turf reaching up to the caves and embrasured for the windows and doors. A house so prepared is almost as warm as cellar. Barns frequently pro tected in the same way on the northern side, f or big straw-stack is thrown up wind break. In eastern Dakota good deal of an ! thracite is burned, dear as it is, and it costs 1 about fifteen dollars ton. Hard wood, hauled on the railroad from the Minnesota ! forests, is worth from six to eight dollars per cord The soft brown Ignite coal from west ! of the Missouri is sold for four or five dollars | per ton and is much used. Eastern Dakota I will soon have 8 cheap fuel supply from the coal beds recently discovered in the Turtle ! mountains, northwest of Devils lake, to
 reach which about fifty miles of railroad will
 have to be built from Minnewaukan, at the I west end of the lake. This coal is harder and more like good bituminous than any oth- CT found in Dakota. I think it worth the at tention of practical Pennsylvania coal opera l tors. Dakota is going to be as thickly set ! tied as Iowa or Kansas, and, as it is almost destitute of timber, its consumption of coal l will be very large. If the Turtle mountain ! deposits are extensive, as there is every req ! son to believe, and as good as the sam
 ples I have seen, vast mining industry will
 grow up there.
 West of the Missouri the country is under
 laid with immense beds of Ignite, cropping out on the sides of buttes and ravines. IT
 the region I lately visited this coal is SC
 abundant and so easily dug that the settlers I supply themselves. Almost every farmer \ 1oJ,6 I1har \ with pick and shovel, he can load his wag on. Those who are too busy to dig their owr fuel can hire neighbors to deliver it for S1.5( per wagon-load. The Ignite shows the I structure of the wood from which it has | been charred and solidfisd in natures labo ! ratory and often contains sections of carbon
 ized limbs. It crumbles quickly when ex I posed to the air, but it makes hot fire anG l answers we'll all the needs of the settlers fol l a domestic fuel. For locomotive use ii
 \ must be mixed with Ohio bituminous coal 1T I proportions varying with the work the en
 zine has to do. The Ignite is of incalcula ble benefit to the poor settlers struggling tt
 make living while. opening farms on the
 prairies. Indeed it would be difficult te I settle many portions of the great area of Da
 kota if the fuel supply had to be brough
 ! from the distant mines of the eastern States ! It is a common mistake in the East to sup
 l pose that this is peculiarly snowy country
 The snowfall here is not nearly as great a
 in Pennsylvania, and the further you g ! West the lighter it is. The railroads ar'
 1 never obstructed by storms of moist snow
 that packs as it falls. All they have to con
 tend with is the dry snow driven by thu
 winds into the cuts. Every cut, even if only
 two feet deep, must be protected by snow
 fence on the northern side The snow is SC
 ! dry that it gets no hold on the ground and ii
 ! swirled about at the sport of the wind ik'
 ! dust. People never carry umbrellas her when it snows for the fine, hard, white par
 ticles do not even damage the ladies' bon
 nets.
 Social life is largely influenced by the SC ] varity of the season. One sees few ladies ol the streets, and those few have their faces s
 untitled up as to be unrecognizab1e. Sleigh
 ing is not as popular in milder regions You witness no such merry processions C
 sleighs as you can see out on the German town road any day when there is good slip
 ping for runners, It is no great sport t drive in the teeth of wind that threatens t. take your ears off if you leave them. uncov cred. The most popular amusement is rol