Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1885 — The Dividing Line. [ARTICLE]

The Dividing Line.

“Well, I never saw the like.” Such was the exclamation I heard while whizzing along in an express traip of the New York. Lake Erie and Western Railroad last spring. I had been deeply immersed m a novel and had not noticed that the weather had changed and that it was raining. “O, that’s nothing; we see it every spring and fall.” The speaker was a brakeman, and his remark was addressed to the man who had never seen the like. The latter had arisen from the seat in front of mine to get a drink of water and had halted to gaze but of the opposite window. The brakeman stood by his side and continued: “That’s nothing; this is the dividing line between rain and snow at this season.” Glancing from the window on the south side of the car, I saw the pane mottled with raindrops, and a board fence running parallel to the track black with wet. Then, peeping out of a window on the north side, I understood the stranger’s surprise. The ground on that side of the track was gray with snowflakes, and they were still falling, “The dividing line—how?” stammered the man addressed by the brakeman.

“Why, this is the point where the di viding line between rainstorms and snowstorms crosses this road,” said the brakeman. “Of course I don’t mean that every storm here is snow to the north of us and rain to the south of us, but at just this season of the year a storm is sure to be divided within a quarter of a mile of this spot, not far from Allendale.” “How do you explain it ?” I asked. “Explain it?” said the brakeman. “I don’t pretend to. I only know our trainmen have noticed it for years, every spring and fall in this neighborhood, if a storm came up at the right season. Some folks as is wiser than I say that the air from the sea impregnates the other air as far inland as this and warms it, while beyond this belt of country the breath of the Gulf Stream, as you might call it, has no effect. But I don’t know—l can’t tell. I just know it is this way onst a year, as you can see for yourself, ” and he vanished in the direction of 1 .. the baggage-car.— Philadelphia Times.