The Topeka state journal., 1913-08-15
Drouth Offers Serious Problem.

Kansas City, Aug. 15.-How to get
water for man and beast and how to
save little out of wrecked crops of
corn and other late summer products
presented Missouri, Kansas and Okla
homa an increasingly serious problem
today 1t was the twelfth day of in
tense heat There were scattered
showers yesterday afternoon and laS4
night. Most of them were Intellectual
entirely and where so much as half an
inch of water fell as at Topeka it was
in narrowly restricted limits. Cisterns
are dry all over the country. Springs
that never before were known to fail
have ceased to flow and in many sec
tionS good deep well is a gold mine.
Long trains of tank cars supply sever
al Oklahoma and western Kansas
towns with all the water they get. A
train of 80 cars of water was shipped
from Pittsburg, Kan, early today to
the mines of coal company in the
Pittsburg district to be used by the
hundreds of miners and their families
and for operating the company's en-
gines. The water was sold by the city
OF Pittsburg and came from wells
1900 feet deep, believed inexhaustible.
The expense of shipping water, how
ever, is so great that several smaller
mines have shut down. In a section
of Seward county, Kansas, where no
rain has fallen in two months, the few
wells that still give water are sur
rounded by campers-familieS that
have closed house and gone to near
water source. Strange stories of heat
prankS come from all parts of the
country. From Alma, Kansas, came a
report vouched for by one of the city
fathers that a woman in a moment of
desperation, wishing to verify or kill
forever the old story of frying an egg
in the sun, had prepared a fresh laid
one nicely in a skillet with butter and
fried it to a IT" :" on a flagStone be-
fore her door with only the sun for
heat. Fire which did nearly a thous- |
and dollars damage in the home of
DR.. Theodore Kroeschat, Enterprise, |
Kansas, yesterday was attributed by |
through lamp chimney in his study |
window upon papers on a desk.
Before noon in most sections of Mis- !
souri, Kansas and Oklahoma the mer-
curry was well on the way to the hun
dred mark. In Topeka last night was
the eleventh hand running during
which the thermometer had not gone
below rs. Last nights minimum
there there was II.
st. Joe reports that unless there is
rain within 4 s hours several small sur
rounding towns will be compelled to
ship in water by rail from st. Joseph.
Farmers in that vicinity who long
since had given up hope of saving
corn have found themselves confront
ed with dried up streams and wells
and the necessity of driving their live
stock miles to water.
Hutchinson, Kan, reported a slight
shower, too little to measure dur
ng last night and temperature a de-
gree lower than yesterdays high ones.
Wichita and surrounding country
lave had an abatement of heat during
he last two days, the thermometer
lot passing SO degrees.
But the country is parched. The
,eople of the city and orchardists
hereabouts are working hard to save
ruit and shade trees by digging holes
lear the roots and carrying water to
hem as regularly as to a horse.
Farmers in the great Arkansas val
ey corn country where it usually is
aid to ''be wet when everywhere else
5 dry" are cutting much of their
emi-matured corn and rushing it
through a grinder into the siIos be-
ore the sun has drunk all the juice.
Past 10 Days Hottest.
Sunny" Flora, the local weather |
nan, stated this afternoon that the
asst ten days have broken all heat rec
rds for a similar period in the last
wenty-seven years since the records
yere begun at Topeka. The average
has been 90.1 degrees,
S against s9.S degrees for the ten
ay period from July 16 to 26, 1901.
The mercury reached the 100 de-
rec mark at o'clock this afternoon.
It that hour there were a few clouds
n the sky, but the chances for rain
we're more or less remote.
Rains are reported from the Ohio
alley and the great lake region. At
Winnipeg 3-22 inches of water has fall
n in the last "a hours.
There will be no change in Kansas
ntil the low pressure area in the
northwest moves. 1t has been station
ry for some time. 1t is cool in the
Northwest country, today the minimum
emperature at Helena, Mont, being
6 degrees.
The hourly readings:
z o'clock SOIL O'Clock 95
8 o'clock ...S3l12 O'Clock e7
9 o'clock ..SS O'Clock eS
0 o'clock 92l O'Clock 100