Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1881 — Cold Winters. [ARTICLE]

Cold Winters.

There seem to be no such winters now as there were seventy or eighty years ago, owing, no doubt, to the cutting down in tins country of the native forests, the planting and growth of the towns and cities, and the general development of the land. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there were il) the Old World some winters bitterly memorable. In Britain, in 1664, the Thames was frozen to the deptii of sixty-one inches, and nearly all the birds in the United Kingdom perished. In 1692 the cold was so intense in Southern Europe, especially in Austria, that wolves were driven by hunger into Vienna, where they attacked beasts of burden and even human beings. Three years later many persons were frozen to death in various parts of Germany. The Cold Winter, as it was called for distinction, occurred in 1709, when all the rivers and lakes in Europe were compactly frozen, and even the sea several miles from shore, and the earth itself from seven to eight feet deep. Birds and beasts fell dead, and thousands of men, women and children perished in their houses. In Southern France nearly all the vineyards were destroyed. The Adriatic was frozen, and much of the Mediterranean in the neighborhood of Genoa and Leghorn, and the lemon and orange groves were blighted in many parts of Italy. During 1716 persons crossed the straits from Copenhagen to the Province of Senia (Luden) on the ice, and horses and wagons likewise. Snow lay ten feet deep in Spain and Portugal during 1740, the Zuyder Zee was covered with ice thick enough to bear a multitude of people, and four years after snow measured on a level twenty-three feet in Portugal. In 1771 the Elbe was frozen to the bottom, and in 1776 the Danube showed ice below Vienna eight to ten feet thick.— New York Times. In pulpit eloquence the grand difficulty lies here : to give the subject all the dignity it so fully deserves, without attaching any importance to ourselves. The Christian messenger cannot think too. highly of his Prince, nor too humblv of himself. This is that secret art which captivates and improves an audience, and which all who see will fancy they could imitate, while most who try will fail.