Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1886-07-08
AsHroM's HOT NAIVE.


the simeon in Dakota on Monday. and
IN reading the following graphic des
cription of it by the Pioneer Press cor
respondent at Ashton the average
ST. Paul citizen will be apt to consider
himself not the most uncomfortable
person in the world after all, and to
breathe hope that Ashton barktepers
are adopts IN the man nfactnre of mint
luleps and claret punches:
This morning at O'clock the people
were awakened by roaring noise and
oppressive heat which almost stuffed
breathing. On going to the door your
correspondent was driven back into the
house by hot air from without which felt
like that from furnace or oven. There
were at the time heavy dark clouds in
the southwest, from which direction the
monsoon wind came. Fear seized upon
the people that deadly cyclone was
in the neighborhood of cyclone cellars
wakening and feeling the heated
the beds and rushed into the street, be-
lieving that their house was on fire. One
citizen describes his fear that the earth
II
mer living eighteen miles northeast of
here, who was on his way to town,
states that it was comparatively cool
struck by hot wind which he could not
face, his hoises refused to move, and
the perspiration oozed from them IN
large drops. The hot wind lasted about
one-half. hour, and the temperature was
100 degrees. Your correspondent has
lived here nearly five years, and been
out when the mercury stood 100
degrees in the 81 ade, but never before
experienced such O heated
atmosphere as that of this
morning. Had this wind continued
for two or three hours, there would not
have been left vestige of living vegeta-
tion, and it is; doubtful whether animal
life could have withstood it. AS o gen.
eral rule the nights are very cool here,
and this freak of nature is a myst ery to
every one. The hot wind was INN edi-
ateiy followed by II cool breeze, but now
at 9 I'm. the mercury stands 100 de-
grees in the shade. Farmers and
merchants generally are feeling very
blue over the gloomy prospects of crops
as this makes the sixth day of excessive
heat.
WEATHER SHARP EXPLAINS.
The letter from Ashton was referred
to Observers Lyons and McGiDnis. and
for moment both we're paralyzed, and
at frat neither could believe it possible
that the thermometer had reached any
such altitude as 120 at d. N. Then
with the eagerness of two scientists they
began to seek to account for it. MIR.
McGinnis was inclined to believe that
it was similar to the terrible Sahara de-
sert simeon, which, like this hot ail
storm, is accompanied by dark cloud
and seems not only to be hot, but deoxy
genized, SO that ii acts on the lungs al
most like carbonic acid or devitaliZed
air Sergeant Lyons assented TO thit
| partially. but suggested that it might
have been the heat from some huge
meteorite. Both agreed that it wa.
one of the mysterious weather
dlspensatlons of Divine Providence
which could not be predicted. There
4 were great barometric disturbances II
the region OF the time, and all Dakct;
was very much heated; but this hot blast
they thought, wns local, like tornado
inasmuch as at the nearest signal sta
ton, Huron, sixty miles away, th,
greatest heat of that day was 1Ol deg
| Up and down the Missouri valley in Da
kota, as far north as Bismarck, is notet
for intense heat in summer. but tn.
highest thermometer ever officially g
ported was at For. Sally, juno 30, 1876
when it rose to III deg. But this wa
in the middle of the day. The hot wav,
at q. m. can only be regarded phe
nomenon, almost unprecedented IN thi
latitude, and certainly unaccountabie
| The extreme heat experienced in st. Pau
extends throughout the northwest, j
being 2 deg. warmer ip Duluth Monda.
than in New Orleans.
/