Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1880 — Cold Weather in the Past. [ARTICLE]

Cold Weather in the Past.

The abnormal severity of the weather which has been experienced in Paris and throughout the greater, _paxL.flf mg, as it does, to threaten us with an exceptionally hard winter, may render interesting a brief glance at some of the great “frosts” of by-gone and modern times. Thus, to • begin at a very early period, snow is recorded to have fallen in Home daring forty days in the 396 sh year before the Christian era. Nearly eight centuries after—the. exact date is uncertain—the Black sea was frozen over for” three weeks. In 608, the vines are stated to have been destroyed by frost over a large portion of France. There is a tradition again that in 860 snow and intense cold prevailed over Europe for six months, even the Adriatic being frozen. In 974 the Bosphorus could be crossod by the ice on its surface. The severe weather was followed by epidemics and famine, to which a third of the population of France is said to have succumbed. In 1163 the Po was frozen over, and wine congealed in the cellars. The winters of 1323 and 1408 were extremely cold. in the former year the ice-bound surface of the Baltic was used as a thoroughfare for six weeks, and in 1408 nearly all the bridges of Paris were carried away by the blocks of ice floating in the Seine. The Clerk of the Parliament of the day declared himself unable to register the degrees, owing to the ink freezing on his pen in spite of the large fires kept burning in his office. In 1468 the weather was so severe in Flanders' that the frozen wine had to be cut with hatchets. Ten years previously a force of 41,000 men encamped on the Danube. In 1504 and 1607 there were games and bonfires on the Thamas. And 1684 is memorable as the year of the great fair held on the English river, which was covered with ice twelve inches thick. An inscription in a book of the period says “ the people kept trade on the Thames as in a fair held till Feb. 4, 1684. About forty coaches plyed on the Thames as on dry land.” Thirty years or so later, in 1716, another fair was held on the same river in midwinter, and yet another in 1740. The years 1766 and 1789 were notable for intense cold throughout Europe. Another ice fair—the last—took place on the Thames in 1814. Hard winters prevailed in 1829, 1840, and 1849. In 1846 the greatest cold experienced in France since the invention of tho thermometer was observed at Pontarlier, when the mercury went down to 31 degrees below freezingpoint. In. 1849 quicksilver froze in Norway. The winter of 1853 was generally severe throughout Europe. Since that date several very cold years have occurred, such as those of 1860 and 1870-71, but they are too fresh in the memories of our readers to need further reference to them here.— Galignani’s Messenger (Paris).