The age-herald., 1901-08-04

of terrors. While the temperature soar cd to 104 degrees in the shade between the hours of noon and o'clock people were dropping dead on the streets and the hospitals overfiowed with victims Earlier in the dry period, on July A. eighty-five persons perished from chol- era, while the thermometer registered 100 degrees. The statistics of the period give this death roll as a decrease of fifty-three over the proceeding week
 Half of the corn crop of Missouri was destroyed, and the pasturages of the state consumed so that the farmer cut his half-grown corn before the heat could finish It's devastation and fed the young shoots to his stock. Kline and swine grew as lean as the beasts that Pharaoh be- held in his dream of a famine. The price of corn jumped from 3S and 40 cents a bushel to 50 and 55 cents and other cereals advanced in proportion. Farm CTS whose fields had been burned by the fierce sun, went across the river into Illi- nois and bought cheap corn for their hogs and cattle. St. Louis merchants ex- perienced a decided drop in their trade with the country districts, and general paralysis settled upon the people.
 One evening, at o'clock, In August four oxen, hauling a cart, dropped dead together at the corner of Eleventh and Olive streets. They were being driven out into the country by a man and his small son. A few minutes later the boy suocumbed to the heat and expired in 8 neighboring house. At o'clock In the evening" on July 22, after a light sprin- kle of rain, the temperature scared to 94 degrees and many deaths followed.
 The river evaporated so fast that on July M the gauge showed a channel depth of not more than eight to nine feet be- tween St. Louis and Cairo. The earth cracked in several parts of the state, where the soil was full of clay Sun strokes followed thick and fast In the city and not a drop of rain fell
 July 20 was celebrated by the papers of the time because the death rate that week had decreased one-third. The week previous the roll had been 300, most of which was the dreaded smiting of the cholera. The thermometer ranged at that time from 90 to 9s degrees.
 Forty deaths from cholera were re- ported for tho week ending August l. The thermometer had averaged 100 degrees during that period On August news arrived in St. Louis that cholera had broken out in Dixon, Mo, and eighteen victims had been claimed in the ffrst twenty-four homes of It's visitation
 On August Paris, Mo. communicated the information that vegetation of al sorts had been parched there under q steady glare of 10i degrees for week All the mills on the water course had been stopped because the water courses were that in name only Stock had be- gun to suffer for lack of water.
 The afternoon of September the same cry went up from the baked city that arises at the sea from the throats of the shipwrecked: Rain at lastr' It fell in torrents and saturated the earth and cooled the overheated atmosphere.
 At the summing up of effects 1t was dis covered that conditions were not so dis astrous as the fears of the people had painted them Nearly half the averag ge corn crop was harvested and fields thought to be worthless took on life and maturity with the coming of frequent showers.