The Holbrook news., 1911-11-10

ing and many deaths all over
 the country has had many sim liar and it would seem even more disastrous predecessors. and in delving into the records of the past the somewhat surprising fact is dis closed that the old world has suffered much more than the new.
 In the years 1303-4 the Rhine. Loire and Seine rivers went dry. The heat in several of the French provinces in 1705 was equal to that of glass fur mace. Meat could be prepared for the table by merely exposing 1t to the sun No person dared to venture out of his house between the hour of noon and 4 p. m.
 In the year 171s many shops had to close all over Europe. Not drop of rain fell for four months. In 1773 the thermometer rose to 11S degrees. In 177S the heat in Bologna was so in- tense that scores of people were stified.
 In July, 1793, the heat again became intolerable. Vegetables were burned up and fruit dried on the trees. The furniture and woodwork in dwelling houses cracked and split and meat be- came tainted in an hour. The French revolution was then at the height of its bloody carnival. and many super stitious persons thought that the wave of heat following this mighty upheaval was the curse of God.
 In 1900 Spain was visited by a swell tering temperature. Madrid and other cities were deserted and the streets became silent
 Another disastrous hot wave swept over Europe in 1851. In the Champs de Mars, Paris. during a military re- view. soldiers by the score fell vic tins to sunstroke. and at Aldershot. England, men dropped dead while at drill, compelling the officers to sus- pend the exercises.
 In This Country.
 The summer of 1858 was exception ally hot in many parts of this country and in New York the thermometer ranged for seven days from 95 to 9S degrees. In one week PA persons died of sunstroke in the metropolis. The year 1854 was hot and dry and the heat seemed to concentrate in the southwest. In Missouri from June IF to the following year not a drop of rain fell In 1872 New York expert enced a torrid visitation of fearful intensity. On July 4, 155 cases of sunstroke occurred and of these 72 proved fatal The principal thorough fares were like fields of battle Men fell by the score and ambuIances were in constant requisition Dumb beasts lay down by the. wayside and panted their lives away. Sleep for two or three of the hottest nights was we'll nigh impossible. and in the tenement districts women and children were found dead on the roofs. to which they had clambered in the hope of getting breath of cool air. The scenes in the morgue were appalling. Dozens of bodies were on the stone slabs, under the splashing water. awaiting the rec ognition of friends or relatives.
 The next serious visitation took place in 1877. and about July began to make its power felt throughout the middle and southern states, as we'll as New York. In Washington the heat was particularly oppressive. The car rails became so expanded by the ac- tion of the sun as to rise up in curved lines. drawing the bolts. In one in- stance the rails burst away from the bolts and left the track entirely. The thermometer marked 104 degrees.
 The summer of 1879 will long be re- membered for its torrid atmosphere. The situation will be better under stood from the following record:. Nor wich, Conn. June 2. 100 degrees; New fork. June 2s. 9s degrees; Charleston.