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

there is any one subject on which
the people i'll this part of the country
are nearly unanimously agreed it is in
their oft expressed conviction that l..
climate iirlcabouts has greatly changed
for the worst during this century. in
that the winters are much colder tlElm
they used to be- and that the frost
line is far south of its former position.
and Is >crccping further soutIlward every
year.
MIR. .Ie>unotsky. or local official
weather sharp. supported this belief in
part by showing by the records that
the cold spell last February was the
coldrst in two hundred years, but stag
gered il again bv citing evidence 10
show that there have been several falls
or SHOW i'll this region, and that groves
OF olive and orange trees on the coast
were frozen out by blizzard in the
seventeenth crntury-about 1870. ns we
remember.
Yesterday our Beaufort correspon-
dent reported the further interesting
fact that, according to al old diary in
his possession. to-day, April Is, is the
fiftleth anniversary of II decidedly "un-
seas0nablc snow storm that pcrvadcd
Beaufort county. and doubticss others
III the state as well, in lS40-iifty years
ago. land 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 sume howl over the visitation then
that Is heard on 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 Il pretty stiff blizzard, cold
enough to kill trees. us late as two
months after the date to the nevcr-to-
bc forgotten one of this year.
1t Is 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
sustained by the authoritive dcclnra-
tions of high weather authority, the
Monthly Weather Review. ns reported
by one OF our exchanges. In the first
place, says TINT journal. according to
the most acceptable judgments of the
day the climate of the country Mt large
lis not changing perccptibility," and
the climate OF this part of it cannot
we'll change much in such conditions.
"The mean temperatures recorded by
the earliest observers, North and
South" moreover. ''are not materially
different from the temperatures record
Ell to-day and this is true of the eli
mate abroad. as well ns ut Hume. -Four
very disastrous frosts," or freezes, it is
noted particularly, have visited the
South i'll this century, and it is believed
that the first, which came in 1895, "wus
the worst" That winter was prcccd-
ed and followed by other winters of
extraordinary harshness,r and SO was
'thc memorable winter of 1886 and TINT
OF 1894, and this last fierce winter" 1t
might almost be established as Il rule,
l
it is noted, that the hardest winters
''are but the climaxes of periods of un-
usual refrigeration" and between these
cold periods are sandwichcd warm
ones. mo 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
Bureau are conclusive on the subject,
OF course, and we must, however un-
willingly, accept the declaration that
'the climate" is no worse, on the whole,
taking one year and one ''pcriod' with
another, than it used to be. That it
appears to be growing colder every
year is, perhaps, sufficiently, If sadly,
explained by the fact that people are,
older now than they used to be.-Newx
and Courier.
= An orange tree that will flourish