Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1886-01-15
The Polar Wave,

The influence of the telegraph in charging
the mental horizon is every year becoming
more evident. The same items of news are
read simultaneously from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. People talk about what is going on
in the most distant parts of the world as they
used TO speak of the doings of the next town.
Even the conversation about the weather is
no longer a local matter. To the newspaper
reader it attains continental proportions. In
the good old stage coach days, each commu-
nifty prided itself On having its own weather.
and no one troubled himself to ask whence it
came. Now when a man congratulates him
self on the warm sunshine which he is at
present enjoying his neighbor can make him
SILVER by referring to blizzard which has
Just been let loose in Manitoba.
The telegraphic reports give US an oppor-
tunity to get, at one glance, view of the
weather during the last week, through the
progress of cold wave. On Wednesday
morning the thermometer at Assiniboine, Da-
kota, registered 800 below zero. At that time
the inhabitants of Jacksonville, Florida, were
sitting peacefully among their semi tropical
orange orchards, and the people in Brattle-
sizes were being gathered? But the wild
western blizzard, when once he starts on the
war-path, will not be confined to Dakota.
Unlike the star of empire, but like his fellow
destroyers, the grasshopper and the Colorado
beetle, his course is eastward. Before night
fall the trains entering Sioux City, Iowa, were
blocked. All over the great plains the scat
terd herds of cattle drifted before the furious
north wind.
Thursday morning found the roads enter
ing Kansas City impossible. One unbroken
covering of snow lay over the ground from
New Mexico to the Missouri river.
Telegraphic communication over the south
ern trans-oontinental lines was cut off, and
only one wire connected San Francisco and
the esst-the line by way of Portland, Ore
gon and st. Paul.
On Friday the cold wave had extended
from Montana to st. Louis, where the Their
mometer registered 100 above zero The
crest of the gigantic polar wave had moved
on to st. Vincent, Minnesota, where, with
the mercury at 4So below zero, the wind was
blowing at the rate of 20 miles an hour. We
stop long enough to ask those who have been
attracted by the glowing descriptions of the
climate of the northwest to use little imag
ination in picturing just what these figures
mean.
On Saturday the blizzard struck Chicago
extending rapidly as far east as Buffalo. Al
the same time the sunny south was invaded
The Dakota blizzard became a Texal
'norther," which even on reaching the Gull
was severe enough to freeze poor oyster
man in his boat in Galveston harbor. Ii
southern Virginia trains were blockaded by
snow. At GAINESVILLE, Florida the mercury
touched 10 and the oranges were frozen OF
the trees. At st. Augustine ice formed al
inch thick. At Chattanooga, Tenn, the tenn
perature was 50 below zero.
All through Sunday and Monday storm o
almost unprecedented fury ragged along tn,
Atlantic coast. Steamers entered port GOV
cred with ice, and large number of sailing
vessels were wrecked
II would be hard to estimate the loss an,
suffering which this one cold wave produced
as it passed over the country. But it i
worthy Of remark that the damage done i
not proportional to the actual severity of tn
weather. but to the way in which people ar
prepared forit To the Vermont farmer will
plenty of fuel and warm clothing for his fam
lily, and with his stock well housed, a suddei
fall of temperature has no terror. Not 81
with the pioneer in his shanty on the beal
prairies, or to the herdsman whose cattle ar
wandering over the plains. Still more disas
trous is ii for the fruit growers of the south
To many of them the cold wave mean
bankruptcy.