The Elk Mountain pilot., 1923-04-12
Chronicles OF Other Times OF Calamity Point Warming
Heed Signs That Come in Abnormal Weather Periods


matte Natures balance may be upset
directions. What has happened in the past apt to
happen again
In the bed of the Ohio river below Pittsburgh is a
rock exposed only at extremely low stages of the
and said to have been partly uncovered only twice since
white men have occupied the country. 1t carries the
strange markings of primitive pre- Columbian peo-
pie and is believed to be their record of the rivers fall
during extreme drought The Indians the Mississippi
Valley had traditions of drought and famine
that there for the deer buffalo, which
died of starvation bird life disappeared the Indians
themselves surviving only by living fish from the de-
pleted streams and the lakes.
later and definitely recorded year of calamity
was 1916, "The Year Without Summer" Various rec
ords have been preserved of this extraordinary period
Not only year of sunspot maxima but the year
before Tomboro in the island of Sumbawa, Dutch East
1ndes blew in of the greatest volcanic explosions
of modern times filling the upper atmosphere with hun
dreds of cubic miles of fine DUST which
months spread all the EARTH lasting for three years.
and in conjunction with the disturbance of the sunspot
maxima intercepted gh of the suns heat account
for the cold weather of 1876 No raised even
in Virginia. Potatoes beans, wheat rye and hardly
got above the ground. There hay pasturage,
and farmers sold their livestock for few dollars head
to the fortunate who had carried from
the previous supply of hay and grain Ice formed
and fell every month in the year. While the East
well settled the trans-Appaachian country
ceving its first strong. impulse of hardy pioneers De-
troit small village and military post, st Louis
French fur trading settlement and Chicago still Fort
Dearborn The abnormal cold extended to the British
Isles Europe and into North Africa 1t may here
be noted that 1852 1876 and 1870 three seriously abnor
NAL years. fit into the 556 cycle of highest maxima
of sunspots that the dry year 1881 recorded nearly as
many sunpots the I'LL year cycle of 1ssa and that
the 55.6 year major cycle will fall in 192627.
The Record of 1916
| The most interesting record of 1916 is that of
Charles Pierce of Philadelphia, from which the follow
| April.-Mean temperature AZ Cold clustering snow
storms ice several nights All buds and things
May-Mean temperature 81. frosty jade, her
frowns many, her smiles few Cold frosty nights north
Corn repanted three times.
membered. Severe frosts and day ice. All re-
started plants killed.
New York, several inches in Maine and New Hampshire,
July-Mean temperature 6s. Frost and thin ice 5th:
and PENNSYLVANIA Grass destroyed. Very little rain.
August -Cheeress and cold. Northeast rains, Ice
Il inch thick Indian Frozen Newspapers from
England say at will be remembered by the present
that the 1916 was year in which there
septsmber- Opened mild; Mean temperature emp 81
| October-Mean temperature Al. Cold, freezing a
| November.-Mean temperature Al. Cold. Froze hard
several nights.
| December-Mean temperature 32 Milder !
History Tells of Cold Spells
Perce records that December 1915, saw more intense
cold weather than December in 20 years. and that
1916 also of exceptional severity in Europe, North
Africa and the West Indies Seed held from
1915 sold for $4 bushe the cob in the spring of 1877
that the year the drought
record in Pennsylvania that scarcely drop of rain
fell from May September and that there crops
The extraordinarily cold year of 1916 repeti-
ton of many such recorded since the beginning of the
Christian Era In 3O1 the Black Sea frozen over and
in 401 only the Black Sea but the Bosporus the Dar
danelles and the Sea of Marmora and again in 1852 In
1884 the Adratic froze History records startling
Der weather catastrophes the of which
with population pressing and closely the
heels of production, would the welfare of human
ity They have oftener than in century, but
it has been less than hundred since food supplies
have been brought thousands of miles the populous
trading and manufacturing nations And it is singular
paradox that far famnes have affected principally the
| agricultural populations of the regions where the
droughts have fallen. 1t could fail fall heavily
the nonproducing if it again in
the future.
How They Come About
Less attention has been given by meterologsts the
period of modern scientific meteorological nvestga
tons has been notable. But in the combination of
unfavorable conditions will lie the explanation
for two three years dry and autumns in the
lower temperate regions with unusually heavy snowfals
in the high northern atudes and abnormaly cold arctic
winter. The stage would then be set for cold late
springs and limited of the arctic ice fields
That in would develop arctic abnormal Highs and
abnormal Atlantic and Pacific Lows This would have the
double effect of bringing up from the depths be-
meath the ubtropca Lows huge bodies of icy and
of causing arctic antiyclones sweep south