Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1888-05-03

The past winter has been so remark
able for its many periods of low tenn
perature. cold snaps and billiards. that
the oldest inhabitants have often been
asked whether they could remember
any thing like it. Cold it undoubtedly
was at times, but let few Arctic voy-
ayers tell us how much greater cold
they had to endure. and the contrast
will almost make our winter seem
warm.
That scientific English mariner. John
Davis, who thrice attempted north
west passage around America, and left
his name to Davis Strait, encountered
a mighty mass of ice in the summer of
1856. He says: 1.-The ayre in this
time was SO contagious, and the sea so
pestered with ice, as that all hope was
banished of proceeding" His men
grew faint of heart and entreated
"that l should not, through my own
boldness, leave their widowes and
fatherlesse children to give me bitter
cnrsses." So he sent one ship home
and pushed on with the other.
The first civilized men to live
through an Arctic winter were Will
lam Barents and a party of Dutchmen.
The quaint old historian of this expe-
dition of 1867 relates that in washing
sheets they froze stiff out of the warm
water, and when laid bya great fire,
the one side thawed, and the other re-
manned hard frozen. Again, he de-
clares it was Every cold. which he
that felt not would not believe. for our
Shoes froze as hard as hornes upon our
feete, and within they were white
frozen" With huge fires, thick clothes,
and hot stones applied to their bodies,
they could not keep warm. When they
held their feet to the fire their stock
ings would burn before they could feel
any heat Their historiographer says:
1.-The cold itself was quite enough to
teach us not to stay long out. mas
much as out of doors it was not smok-
ing hot
William Baffin. whose name survives
in that of Balm bay, complains that
during his fifth voyage. in the summer
of 1916. the ships ropes and sails were
SO frozen that they could scarcely be
handled. OF Henry Hudson's last voy-
age. in which his mutinous crew cast
him adrift to die. the narrator re-
marks: TO speak of all our trouble
in this time of winter (Which was so
cold. as it famed the most of our COM
pany and my selfe doe yet feele it)
would bee too tedious.
An interesting old account of Gods
Power and Providence in the Preser-
walton of eight Men in Greenland"
by Edward Pelham. one of the men,
relates that in 1851. the cold was so
extreme as to raise blisters on the
skin; iron, when touched. would stick
like bird-lime; and going out of doors
made one feel as if he had been cruel
~ beaten. The Moravian missionary.
David Crantz, whose history of Green
land still contains the best description
of those icy mountains" says that
the piercing cold there split stones in
twain and causes the sea to reek like
an oven.
Captain Scoresby. the historian of
Northern whale-fshery. notes the eff
fects of sudden fall of the tempera-
ture in 1914: his men could not artic-
ulate distinctly; the frost-smoke from
the ocean was thicker than fog. and
water froze two feet from the stove.
Sir Edward Parry. who went further
North than any one dared follow for
almost half century, mentions the
difficulty of handling his sextant; its
cold metal so panied the hand that it
had to be wrapped in soft leather. He
remarks that when the cold air was let
into an inhabited room it condensed
the warm vapor into thick "smoke, :"
which froze on the woodwork, and re-
quired to be scraped off During in
tense cold, sounds travelled surprising
distances, for Parry often heard con-
versations in common tone of voice q
mile or more away.
In Sir John Franklin's narrative of
his second expedition to the shores of
the Polar Sea, he notes a temperature
of So degrees below zero as the lowest
experienced in that region. But this
must have been surpassed during the
terrible sufferings of his men on that
last disastrous voyage. when in re-
treating southwark by land they fell
down, one after another, to perish mis-
erably of cold and hunger. and not one
survived to tell the tale.
DR.. Kane Is the most readable of the
many Arctic explorers who went in
search of Sir John Franklin. He says
the cold of the Northern winter used to
freeze up all his eatables; . barrel Of