The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1893-01-07
Excessive Heat.
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Service, they may find relief in the thought
that men have to live in places which, aftel
all, are much hotter even than Chicago in
the latter days of June. BY comparison
they may imagine themselves almost cool
and, if their imagination is sufficiently
vivid. il results in Il measure of comfort
independent of the readings Of the Their
mometcr.
Hottest of all torrid spots upon the
summer earth is Alden, at the mouth Of
the Red Sea. where the English Govern
ment maintains coal pile for its navy
and force of soldiers to watch the pile,
lest it be set airc by jealous powers. They
lead the life of lonely salamanders upon
their isolated rock, with a view of almost
boiling sea in one direction, with wide
stretches of baked sand in the other, and
behind them rugged ranges of mountains,
dry and red, where no green thing is ever
seen to grow. No matter whence the
wind may blow, it brings no moisture to
the Straits of Bah el Mandeb-even dew
is Il rare phenomenon, for the clouds which
appear in the sky at sunset serve as blank
cts to make the night stagnant with heat
more uncomfortable than the blazing sun by
day About once in four years the therm-
ometer registers as low as 80 degrees in the
coolest part of tie day just before sunrise;
the lowest point of ordinary nights is fully
five degrees warmer. But with the sun
returns the heat hour by hour the mer-
curry in the thermometer emulates the
course of the sun in the sky; it climbs
higher and higher and brings more dis
comfort to suffering humanity. Shortly
after midday it reaches its highest notch
which il maintains until nearly sunset, and
it is never lower than ! ID degrees, and
frequently travels many degrees higher
yet, and has been known to register l35
degrees in the shade 1t rains on this
blistered military post about once in three
years, and that is the sole water supply,
for there are no springs, and well-borings
tap nothing but seams of eternal drought.
As much else in Arabia King Solomon is
credited with the responsibility for the
Alden reservoirs, aud to this day they are
called King Solomon's we'll Wells of the
neighboring mountains have been damned
at some remote antiquity, and the work is
so enduring that it may well have been
done by Afrites under the mighty spell
of the mystic seal. Here is collected the
water of the triennial shower, and, by eco
nomical use, it may be made to last until
the rain comes again.
Bad as the case is at the southwest cor
ner of Arabia, it is even worse at the
southeast angle, where lies the Bahrein
Islands Just off the coast of Oman. 1t is
as hot here as at Alden, and there is the
additional discomfort that it never rains at
all. Dates grow upon the island and pro-
vide food for the population for their
drinking water they are forced to seek it
in the sea, which is the last place where
one would expect to find fresh water.
Strange as il may seem, not drop of
water is drank by the Bahren Islanders
which has not been brought from the bot
tom of the sea. Springs exist at depth
of several fathoms, and the only way of
getting Il drink is 10 dive for it. Water
hearers 90 down with empty skins and
bring them up full to peddle the precious
contents
1t is not within the tropics that one
finds the maximum heat, nor is the heat
of the torrid zone so insupportable as sum-
mer extremes in more temperate zones.
1t the hot spells of Chicago had occurred
in the Java seas it would probably have
depopulated the archipelago with cholera,
yet the average heat of the Malayan Is
lands is more than so degrees The cause
is not far to seek the people are aceus-
toned to climate of moderate range and
do not have to exhaust their vitality in
supporting great cold for large portion
Of the year. Their systems grow used to
certain amount of heat, and their mode
of living is conformed to that standard
Australia is probably the hottest Of the
temperate lands inhabited by white races,
aud it is at the same time almost the dry
est, excluding such absolute deserts as a
large portion of the Pacific coast of South
America From the time when its sum-
mer begins in September, until the coming
of winter in July, not only does no rain
fall, but during those nine months there is
scarcely cloud to shade the earth The
earth gives up all its moisture, almost the
largest bodies of water dry up, the air is
dry, and day by day the sun sends down
ever fercer beams. Even the thermome-
ter bushes for shame at the temperature
it is called upon to record. Adelaide,
which is upon the south shore of the con-
tineut, finds l13 degrees no unusual tenn
perature for Christmas, and an additional
10 degrees scarcely calls for comment in
the Journals Strangers to the climate are
Frustrated aud yet retain animation enough
to be filled with amazement that the ma
tives seem so little affected by the heat.
Not content with the appalling state of the
thermometer in the shade they expose il
to the sun and find to their dismay a tenn
perature of anywhere from 100 degrees
to $50 degrees.
The native colonials 20 about their bus
iness unaffected by the heat, and look not
at all at the thermometer, but most anx
iously at the weather cocks. When the
wind shows disposition to get into the
north they begin to tremble, and by the
time the vanes have united in pointing td
the invisible pole star Adelaide is like a
city of the dead Doors and windows il
every house are tightly closed to keep GU
the heat borne by the wind from thu
northern desert, workmen leave their work
and idlers vanish from the streets, ever
the cabs are driven home 70 stable. Their
the wind begins, gentle at first, as though
trying to mask its real ferocity. Littl
gusts of breeze snap about the corners
little throbs Of heat steal upon one a