The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1899-04-19
The Climate Not Changed.

If there is any one subject OH which
the people in this part of the country
are nearly unanimously agreed tits in
their Oft expressed conviction that the
climate hercabouts has greatly changed
for the worst during this century, In
that the winters are much colder than
they used to be, and that the "frost
liner is far south of it's former position,
and is creeping further southward every
year.
Mr.. .Jesunofsky, our local official
weather sharp, supported this belief IN
part by showing by the records that
the cold spell last February was the
coldest in two hundred years, but stag
gered it again by citing evidence to
show that there have been several falls
of snow in this region, and that groves
of olive and orange trees on the coast
were frozen out by blizzard in the
seventeenth century-about 1910, as we
remember.
Yesterday our Beaufort correspon
dent reported the further interesting
fact that, according to an old diary in
his possession, to-day, April is, is the
fftieth anniversary of a decidedly "un-
seasonable' snow storm that pervaded
Beaufort county, and doubtless others
in the State as well, in 1849-fifty years
ago, "and which was succeeded by
three days of freezing weather which
effectually killed vegetation, and even
trees, all over Georgia, South Carolina
and parts of Florida There was not
the same howl over the visitation then
that is heard OH such occasions now
since the States named have taken to
growing peaches, garden truck and
oranges for the northern market, so
that the "cold wave" in question was
long since forgotten, but the fact is, as
noticed, that the three States were
swept by pretty stiff blizzard, cold
enough to kill trees, as late as two
months after the date to the never-to-
be forgotten one of this year.
1t il safe assumption, in view OF
these reported occurrences, that our
climate has not changed so very much
since early colonial days, after all, and
this view of the question is strongly
sustained by the authoritiye declara-
tions of a high weather authority, the
Monthly Weather Review, as reported
by ore of our exchanges In the first
place, says that journal, according to
the most acceptable judgments of the
day the climate Of the country at large
is not changing perceptibility," and
the climate Of this part of it cannot
well change much in such conditions.
"The mean temperatures recorded by
the earliest observers, North and
South moreover, care not materially
different from the temperatures record
ed to-day and this is true OF the eli
mate abroad, as well as at home. Four
every disastrous frosts," or freezes, 1T is
noted particularly, have visited the
South in this century, andit is believed
that the first, which came in 1885, "was
the worst .sThat winter was preced-
ed and followed by other winters of
extraordinary harshness," and so was
.sthe memorable winter of 1886 and that
Of 1894, and this last fierce winter" 1t
might almost be established as a rule,
it is noted, that the hardest winters
care but the climaXes ofperiods of un-
usual refrigeration and between these
cold periods are sandwiched warm
ones. "No attempt" finally, sis made
to explain the warmth of the long in
terval between 1885 and 1886, except by
the statement that in earlier days no
widespread notice was given to any
thing less than extraordinary freezes" +"
The figures collected by the Weather
au are conclusive on the subject,
OF course, and we must, however un-
willingly, accept the declaration chat
.sthc climate" is no worse, on the whole,
taking one year and one "period" with
another, than it used to Ge. That it
appears to be growing colder every
year is, perhaps, sufficiently, it sadly,
explained by the fact that people are
older now than they used to be.-Nems
and Courier.