Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1899-03-31
HOT AND COLD WAVES.
Both Kinds Flourish Beautifully in This Happy
Land of Freedom.

Maryland Academy of Sciences said:
ave have some kinds Of weather in
the United States that are unknown
abroad. Take the cold wave, for ex.
ample, that struck the far South a
a couple OF years ago. 1t was rec
ord breaker, you know, carrying the
rigors of winter to lower latitude
than has been known for sixty years
at least. Florida suffered at $4,000
600 worth of damage. At Pensacola
the oranges frozc hard on the trees
The thermometer at Tampa fell to Is
degrees above zero, five degrees below
the lowest ever noted. At Orange
Park, ice two inches thick formed on
ponds. A cold wave of equal severity,
it is said, struck the flowery peninsula
in 1885, but temperatures were not re,
corded with reliable accuracy.
"Cold waves are unknown in Eu-
rope. We may justly pride ourselves
upon them as an American institu.
tion. 1t is the same way with bliz-
yards. Who ever heard of blizzard
in Europe?
"Cold waves are very strange phe.
nOmena. Nobody knows with Ger.
tainty where they come from or how
they are formed. They are formed
somewhere inland in the far North.
west, in the latitude of greatest cold,
which, as you know, is good way
south Of the North Pole. At the
Nerth Pole it is probably comparative.
ly warm, and that extremity of the
carth's axis is perhaps surrounded by
an open and unfrozen sea. As for the
typical cold wave, my belief is that it
is composed of air drawn from the
higher and more frigid regions of the
atmosphere. Ascend to an altitude OF
thirty miles above the earth's surface
and you might find rarified air at a
temperature Of 100 degrees below
zero. or even much lower. The body
of cold formed by the downrush OF
this frigid air from above, starts OH a
journey eastward across the conti-
nent, travelling at the speed of a fast
railway train, thirty-five or forty miles
an hour. AS it proceeds it spreads
out. Obviously the cold air would be
gradually warmed during the trip un-
less the waves were replenished with
cold in some fashion. My notion is
that while the wave is in transit fresh
cold is continually drawn into it from
above, where there is always an un-
limited supply of air at an extremely
low temperature. Finally, the wave
passes over the ocean. In some man.
ner the Allegheny mountains seem to
interrupt the passage of cold waves,
to certain extent, as if the cold air
was banked up against that range Of
hills, and its passage thus impeded.
On this account it is very difficult to
predict cold waves for the region of
Baltimore and Washington.
"The lowest natural temperature
ever recorded on the earth was taken
at Worchojansk, in the interior OF ST.
IBERIA, January Is, 1885. 1t was 80 de-
grees and a fraction below zero.
Werchojansk is in the latitude of the
pole Of cold, and in the warmest sea-
son it never thaws. The highest tenn
perature recorded is 124 degrees and
a fraction, taken in Algeria, July II,
1879. The lowest temperature on
record in the United States is Ga de-
grees below zero, at Tobacco Garden.
N. ID. Greedy, the Arctic explorer,
has probably experienced a wider
range OF temperature than any other
living man. He recorded 66 degrees
below zero at Fort Conger, on Lady
Franklin Bay. On another occasion,
in the Maricopa Desert of Arizona, his
thermometer in the shade ran up to
ia degrees above. A lucifer match
dropped upon the burning sands Of
Sahara will catch fire. 1t is very diff
ficult, even with the finest thermome-
ters, to get accurate records of extreme
temperatures. and on that account
such observations in general are to be
regarded as only approximately cor
rect"
AT royal function in England re-
Gently, the queen had occasion to in.