Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1923-04-11
1916 A. D., KNOWN AS A
"YEAR. WITHOUT SUMMER
Chronicles of Other Times of Calam-
ity Point Warming to Heed Signs
That Come in Abnormal Weather
Periods.

| feTlOUSs
Job 50: 33-KnoWeSt thou the ordi-
nances of the heavens? Canst thou
establish the dominion thereof in the
earth?
Crop failures may come from any
unreasonable climatic cause. Ma
lures balance may be- upset from
several directions. What has hap
pened in the past is apt to happen
again.
In the bed of the Ohio river below
Pittsburgh is a rock exposed only at
extremely low stages of the river and
said to have been only partly uncov
cred only twice since white men have
occupied the country. It carries the
strange markings of some primitive
pre-Columbian people and is believed
to be their record of the rivers fall
during an extreme drought. The In
dams of the Mississippi Valley had
traditions of a drought and famine so
severe that there was no grass for
the deer or buffalo, which died of
starvation; even bird life disappear
ed, the Indians themselves surviving
only by living on fish from the de-
pleted streams and the lakes.
A later and more definitely record
ed year of calamity was 1916, THE
Year Without Summer" Various
records have been preserved OF this
extraordinary period. Not only was
it year of sunspot maxima, but the
year before Tomboro, in the island of
Sumbawa, Dutch East Indies, blew up
| in one OF the greatest volcanic e1-
blossoms of modern times, filling the
upper atmosphere with hundreds of
| o,,I1; Will nf mr. uN1po nin dnCf
which in a few months spread all
over the earth, lasting for three
years, and in conjunction with the
disturbance of the sunspot maxima
intercepted enough Of the suns heat
| to account for the cold weather of
1916. No crops were raised even in
Virginia. Potatoes, beans, wheat,
rye and corn hardly got above the
ground. There was no hay or pastur-
age, and farmers sold their livestock
for a few dollars head to the more
! fortunate ones who had carried over
| from the previous year supply OF
hay and grain. Ice formed and snow
| fell every month in the year. While
the East was we'll settled, the trans
Appalachian country was receiving
it's first strong impulse of hardy
pioneers. Detroit was 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 even into North Africa.
1t may here be noted that 1852, 1916
and 1870, three seriously abnormal
years, fit into the 55.6 year cycle of
highest maxima of sunspots, that the
dry year 1881 recorded nearly as
many sunspots as the I'LL year cycle
of 1883, and that the next 55.6 year
major cycle will fall in 1926-27.
The Record of 1916.
The most interesting record Of 1916
is that of Charles Pierce, of Philadel-
phia, from which the following is
taken:
April.-Mean temperature A. Cold
clustering snow storms; ice several
nights. All buds and green things
killed.
May.-Mean temperature 81. A
frosty jade, her frowns many, her
smiles few. Cold frosty nights, north
winds. Buds and small fruit frozen.
Ice Il to 1a inch. Corn replanted
three times.
June.-Average temperature 64. IL
was coolest ever remembered. Severe
frosts and on one day ice. All re-
started plants killed.
Six to ten inches snow in Vermont,
three inches in New York, several
inches in Maine and New Hampshire.
July.-Mean temperature 68. Frost
and thin ice 9Th. Ice as thick as win
dow-glass in New York, New England
and Pennsylvania. Grass destroyed.
Very little rain.
August.-Cheerless and cold. Rains
from northeast. Ice IL inch thick.
Indian corn frozen. Newspapers from
England say: "It will be remembered
by the present generation that the
year 1916 was year in which there
was no summer"
-September.-Op mild. Mean
temperature 81. Frosty 18th. Sc
we're Equinoctial storm, 23rd. Then
several days of freezing weather.
October-Mean temperature Al.
Cold, freezing; few warm days.
November.-Mean temperature Al.
Cold. Froze hard several nights.
History Tells of Cold Spells.
PIERCE records that December, 1915,
I saw more intensely cold weather than
any December in 25 years, and that
1916 was also of exceptional severity
in Europe, North Africa and the West
Indies. Seed corn held over from
1915 sold for 81 a bushel on the cob
in the spring of 1877 He also notes
that the year 1852 had the severest
drought on record in Pennsylvania,
that scarcely a drop of rain fell from
May to September, and that there
were no crops.
The extraordinary cold year of
1916 was repetition of many such
recorded since the beginning of the
Christian Era. In 301 the Black Sea
was frozen over, and in 401 not only
the Black Sea but the Bosporus, the
Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmora,
and again in 762. In 1884 the Adria-
tic froze History records startling
number Of weather catastrophes, the
recurrence of which now, with popu-