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

saw, butter Win cnlSel anu malict,
beef with crow-bar and hand-spike,
and ices for dessert were brought on
the table pendant to broom-stick. A
mans breath looked often like the
firing of pistol in miniature. and it
would freeze beard and mustache sol
idly together. During an amateur
theatrical performance to celebrate
Washington's birthday. it was so cold
on shipboard that the actors walked in
cloud of vapor, and if one took off
his hat, his head smoked like dish of
potatoes. On his second expedition.
DR.. Kane saw his thermometers run
down to sixty and seventy-five degrees
below zero. He tells a story OF fox
escaping from trap only to be frozen
dead to smooth stone by the moisture
of his own breath.
Captain MClintock, who did so
much to discover the fate of Sir John
Franklin and his companions. remarks
upon the trying cold of his Christmas.
when bowling Northwestern prevented
his men from walking the short dis
tance to his magnetic observatory: DIR.
Hayes in 1.-The Open Polar Sea" de-
scribes the discomforts of sleeping in a
snow-hut with the temperature outside
100 degrees below the freezing
point Captain Hall, an enthusiastic
explorer until his death in the Arctic
region, deems it necessary to take a
pocket-mirror in solitary rambles and
to look at the face from time to time,
lest unawares it should be nipped by
frost-bite. In writing his records at a
low temperature he warmed his fing-
ers and thumb over small lamp,
which also heated two metal plates to
be alternately placed under his sheet
of paper. Payer, one of the COM
manders of the Austrian expedition
that discovered new lands within the
Arctic Circle in 1S72-1S74, tells how
the cold affects man, lowering the
pulse. dulling the senses, diminishing
muscular power, freezing the eyelids.
paining the soles of the feet, produc-
ing intense thirst, sometimes bleach
ing the beard, and causing nervous
weakness. torpor and drowsiness.
Sir George Mares made successful
voyage to the Polar Sea in 1866. and
one of his sledging parties reached q
point further north than Parry's. His
astronomical observers found star-gaz-
ing extremely cold work with the Their
mometer seventy-three degrees below
zero. The smokers complained of
their tobacco pipes freezing. Comfort
ers worn around the neck sometimes
froze fast to the beard and had to b.
cut away, beard and all. There were
few opportunities of noting how ami
mails bore the cold. The Eskimo dogs
scorned to use snow-kennel built for
them. A pet cat ventured once on
deck, but hoped about, shaking one
foot after another, and sneezed inces
sanity as if in danger of choking In
Baron Nordenskiald' great achieve
ment of the northeast passage around
Asia and Europe in 1859 his inex-
perienced men were more or less frost
bitten and had frost. blistcrs, but soou
learned to avoid such accidents.
OF recent American Arctic expedi-
tons two will ever be memorable for
their record of suffering and calamity.
Lieutenant Commander De Longs
journals mention that his dogs froze
fast to the ice and left considerable
hair sticking there, when they tore
themselves away, one having actually
to be dug out with shovel. To
avoid snow-blindness his men wore
goggles, which were apt to frost up
and become opaque. On a cold mid
winter night he notes the beautiful
picture made by the ice in the light of
a delicate new moon and by the ship
with every rope and spar doubled in
size by the frost. Little, however,. he
said of the cold in the brief account of
that fatal month of October, 1881.
when the "Jeannette sunk and heI
boats separated. the brave De Long
and his eleven companions struggled
through the Lena delta in the vain
hope OF reaching some Siberian settle.
ment, until they died of exhaustion and
starvation.
The Lady Franklin Bay expedition
under Lieutenant Greedy gained tor
America the honor of attaining the
highest northern latitude, which for
three centuries had been held by En-
gland. During his three years of Arc
tic service QSS1-S4). Lieutenant Greedy
had considerable experience of low
temperature. and he notes a cor
rected thermometer reading of 81
degrees below zero. But the hor-
rors of his last winter were due
to the pangs of hunger rather than
of cold. A simple but heart-rending
story he tells of men shut up in rude
storm hut, too low to stand erect in.
passing the weary hours of sunless
months in their sleeping-bags, calcu-
lating ever how to keep the breath of
life in their wasted bodies with the
least expenditure of fuel and food,
and dying one after another from