The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-08-02
THE AIR BURNED OUT
AMAZING STORIES OF HI HEAT IN
AUSTRALIA LAST WINTER.
The Mercury Ranged from 129 to lS2
Degrees, Causing Men and Antmais
to Fall Dead in Their Tracks.

New York Journal.
The terrible heat in Australia. regarding
which some brief cablegrams have already
been published. is shown by fuller reports
to have been one of the most amazing of
recorded calamities. Some of the incidents
of the visitation are so weirdly prodigious
that they would seem TO form part or the
story of an earthquake rather than of a
silent and insidious agent of devastation,
such as a period of excessive heat.
The recent burning out of the atmos-
phere'' on the Darling watershed in Aus
tralia Git is in these terms that the phe-
| nomenon may best be described) has pro-
| yoked so much controversy among SCI
| entists and has been so infinitely investi-
| gated by the government Of New South
| Wales that the testimony regarding the
catastrophe is now as complete as II ever
will be. The physicists who have conduct
ed the investigation, and whose reports
have arrived by the last Australian mail.
| find that the mortality was not due 10 the
| mere insulation of the air. No heat above
liz degrees Fahrenheit observed at AIDE
laide) was registered. and it is we'll known
that 230 degrees is a temperature TO which
the air of Hammam baths is often heated.
At one point on the Darling river, where
the heat wars only 129 degrees in the shade,
death came more suddenly and decomposi-
ton more quickly followed death than at
Adelaide. The presence of light carburet-
ed hydrogen, the gas which forms the ba-
sis of fire damp, was repeatedly detected.
1t is a common laboratory experiment TO
burn out from air its life-giving properties,
just as by calcination the cementing COM
ponent of a lump Of metal is exhausted
80 .@k Is
powder. But the heat, considered merely
as heat, was not sufficient in Australia 10
lave produced this rarefacticn. When men
standing on hrlltops, with the parched
fronds of giant fern rustling ia the wind,
fell stiied and died for the want OF air 70
breathe, there was present some such
strange principle of evil as that which slew
the Pompeiians before the ashes fell upon
them.
Research shows the existence of an un-
known factor in the heat, some force which
eludes the measurement of the thermome-
ter, which fails to dilate the mercury. just
a retin nne OF Sat tSe ev ray a anhs Q 20 i% II 5ierces
Opaque substances and leaves it's mark
upon a Photographic plate.
OPERATOR DEAD AT HIS KEY.
Some of the cases of prostration are pro-
6igiously amazing. The telegraph operator
at Nyngan died with his hand on the key.
and his last message. 1.-The mosquitoes here
are being killed by the heat" was thought
to be a symptom of delirium. until the
man sent to replace him reported that he
had counted six streaked gnats lying dead
upon the pad of yellow paper at the dead
mans elbow.
At Broken Hill a clinical thermometer
showed a mans temperature TO be l09A de-
grees at an interval of an hour and a half
after death. The heat of the air at the
time Yves not so great that the cadaver
ought (the thermal conductivity of mani
mate flesh being low to have shown more
than about 90 degrees; yet two physicians
checked the reading.
In the animal kingdom there was to be
seen the same vague terror which Darwin
dwells upon in connection with eclipses and
earthquakes. The Australian magpies,
which are among the most shy of the timid
crow family of birds. fiocked into poultry
yards and a bevy of wry-bill blowers set
tied on the shoulders and on the wagon OF
a man who was driving into Yarlalla as
confdingly. as If they had been domestic
pigeons. Rabbits huddled into a sheep
herder's tent near Tholabool and piled up
ing his dead body. Sheep took to water,
and in shallow streams, where they could
keep their footing as long as their strength
remained. Then one after another was
seen to roll over and drift away with the
stream. killed by the vitiated air.
When it was first reported that all the
fish in Lake Copage had been killed by the
heat, and that tons of them rising to the
surface and accommodating at the western
outlet of the lake lay decomoosing, the
incident was considered incredible. Now
that the story has been fully corroborated.
there would seem TO be an indication of
some seismic activity. If the bed Of the
happened in the case of other bodies of
water during periods of volcanic disturb
ances, it would have been easy to have I'M
derstood the disaster, but unless the SUBJ
terranean fires were showing power in
some way which altogether eluded the per-
ception of the seismometer and other in
struments intended for their observation,
this theory is untenable. The hot springs
which bubble up from the earth in various
parts of the country were not hotter than
usual.
PHENOMENON UNEXPLAINED.
Reasoning In a circle, one comes back TO
the fact that the solar heat. terrible as it
was, does not fully explain the Dhenom-
ena. and yet no other explanation exists.
j. Meridith Crawford, a large land owner
and wool grower on the Darling river. left
one Of his most northerly sheep stations
at the beginning of the ter rible twenty-siA
days to visit England on business. He is
now spending q few days at Newport, and
sails for Southampton by the New York
on Wednesday. a correspondent of the
Journal saw him day before yesterday. and
his account of the drought with which the
hot spell began gives some idea of the ex-
traordinary climatic conditions by which
the calamity was heralded.
II had gone down to Sydney before the
worst came he said, but the foreman
on my No. 2 station. on the border, wrote
me a full account of what ne saw. He is
a cool-headed Scotchman, and has been
with me for twenty years, an6. l rely on
what he says. The reports Of mortality
about which you ask me are in no way ex-
aggerated, and the fact about Tire magpies
coming into the poultry yard is no more
extraordinary than what Mcclellan, the
foreman. saw. II was just beginning when
| left. Four years ago l built a shearing
shed and nuts for three shepherds about
thirty miles north of this No. 2 station.
The only water within ten miles of this
new place was in a water hole about thirty
feet IN diameter, but what / saw of the
tracks running down to il and what some
of the old natives told me about il decided
me to go ahead in the belief that ii was q
permanent supply. When this drought
came. however. / began to be uneasy about
il, and / rode over TO have a look for my
self. There were at that time very few
places where wild animals could find water
Our supply at the home station was all
right. but / have got a ring fence twenty
three miles long around 1t. made Of close
meshed wire netting, TO keep out the rab-
bits. so / know that nothing but my own
sheen can get any of that water. The
water hole / went TO is not, however. closed
In and as l saw that the smaller holes on
nv way over to il. of which three or four
usually have a small supply except in very
bad times. were all dry, l knew that the
brumbies. kangaroos. dingoes and such
trash must come from the country south rs
far as seventy or eighty miles TO find
water.
..When I got over there at sunset two of
the shepherds were still out in the bush,
hut / had a talk with the other one. and