Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1893 — THE COLDEST IN YEARS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE COLDEST IN YEARS.

THIS WINTER A SURE RECORDBREAKER. Spell or Weather Throughout the Northwest that Stomps the Oldest Inhabitant —Mercury Freeses Solid in Wisconsin— Ice Six Feet Thlek at Bt. Paul. Great Saltering Reported.

h T “beats all,” ae--1 cording to the Igovernme n,4 weather man at’ Chicago, %ow the cold spell hangs on. He says he never saw such conditions. The ooldest day Chicago has experienced in . twenty years was L lnDeoember,lß72. r when it registered a minus 2-* for only a short time. Throe winters later, in January,

there was a day 30 below: one in January, 1879, when It got as low as 18, and January 1884 and 1888, had one each equally as chilling. Sunday was the next epoch-maker and the mercury at 7 o’clock a. nl. showed 10 below Necessarily, the cold caused untold suffering. It was a .bitter Sunday for the coafless poor, and they are legion in Chicago. Church-goers were oomfoitable in heated sanctuaries, hut the unfortunate in the thousands ol tireless attics got another swish from the flood of misfortune. Many a grave will get its fill from the blast. The station houses were filled with men who begged for places to sleep. They could have been filled twice over had It been possible to receive all the applicants. Hundreds came in with frozen ears and faces, piteously asking for a chance to get warm. Ice Six Feet Thick.

After three winters that scarcely deserved the name the Northwest is now experiencing one of the old-fashioned kind. The present January has beaten the record for intense and sustained cold weather and there is no prospect of a change. For four years the new year has found the ground clear of snow at St. Paul, and every lake and stream open. That oity has been proudly olaiming location In the center of the “banana belt" This winter got Its work in early, coming in November with steady snow falls that will He till spring. The mercury wont below zero in the same month atid has been above that mark only at rare intervals since. On Christmas Day It was 36 below, about the same on New Year’s, and has maintained a steauy gait ever since. At St. Vincent and Miunedosa 40 below has been reached and the cold has been nearly as severe all over the western and northwestern part of the State. A cube of ice six feet thick was cut from Vadnafo Lake. It Is the heaviest ico seen since the famous block which formed the corner stone of the Ice Palace in 1(^16. In Omaha the thermometer registered 8 below and In the northwestern part of the State 22 below. The snow in the eastern part of the State has been there since Nov. 26. Kansas is also suffering extremely from the cold but in the western part snow covers the ground and wheat is well protected. In Des Moines, at 4 o’clock in the morning the thermometer registered 18 degrees below, and at Sioux City the weather has been intensely cold for a week. The meroury has ranged from 4 to 18 degrees below zero. The Missouri, Big Sioux and Floyd Rivers are frozen to a greater depth than for many years. At Cineinnatl everything is tied up by the cold weather. The thermometer was 14 degrees below zero, and in some places on the hill-tops it was 18 below. The Ohio River is frozen tight from bank to bank, postponing any threatened devastation by the Ice gorge. For the first time since 1877, pedestrians are walking across the river on the Ice, the five bridges being deserted oxcept by vehicles and oars. Many motormen and cable gripmen were, compelled to desert their posts. More" relief is promised the poorer classes. Eighteen car loads of coal, 180 tons, arrived for distribution at cost price. - • Froze the Mercury Solid. Wisconsin is also fast in the grasp of the ice king. Dispatches from all parts o? the, State report the coldest weather for years. In Milwaukee it was 14 degrees below, but that wasn't a marker to the weather up north. At Spa: ta the mercury froze solid at 40 below; at Whitehall it was 45 below; Lacrosse, 36; Medford, 42; Neenah, 28; Watertown, 30; Kaukauna, 30. The Winnebago Indians on the reservation near Black River Falls are suffering terribly. Marine men say the lake will be frozen solid from Grand Haveu to Milwaukee if this weather continnes. The thermometer at Detroit reached 10 degrees below. Few advices from out in the State have been received ae yet, everything seeming to be literally paralyzed by the cold.