Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 74, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1910 — COLDEST SINCE 1866-1867. [ARTICLE]

COLDEST SINCE 1866-1867.

When the MercutV Thermometer* Froze Up at Stiver Bow. “This Is the record for cold weather since the winter of 1866-1867," said General Charles S. Warren in the Thornton lobby yesterday afternoon* according to the Anaconda Standard. “We have had thirty days of continuous cold weather and there has scarcely been a night during that time when the thermometer did not reach the zero point. The winter es 1866 and 18,67 was the only one that beat this That is a long time to refer back to, but I am right. We used to havt mercury thermometers thosn days, and it Was only once in a great while when we ran across such a thing as a spirit thermometer. The mercury thermometer used to freeze solid when 30 grees below was reached and then the bulb would break and the thermometer go out of commission. “In company with a bunch of oldtime miners I was in Silver Bow at that time. There were not more than fifty inhabitants here in Butte and we used to think them foolish to locate on such a bleak hillside /.when there were much greater comforts to be aalued down in Silver Bow, where the

town was t* a lower altltuae and where the wind did not have such a good sweep at us unless it sucked through the canyon. “As I was saying, the mercury froze lh the thermometers when it reached' 30 degrees below zero, and it was only a matter of a few days until every thermometer in the camp was broken. We sent word to Deer Lodge by the stage driver to send up a new supply, but the merchants of that town reported there was nothing doing—that the cOld had broken all their thermometers as well. Then it was up to u« to devise some method of measuring the cold. One Of the miners happily found a solution of our trouble.* Around all of the placer camps there is always a lot of quicksilver—we used to use it in the sluice boxes to catch the placer gold. Mercury was our standard of cold measure in all the thermometers, so this chap used to put a lot of quicksilver into a gold pan and place it at som£ point outside his cabin. Actually it was so cold that the ‘quick’ would freeze so hard within an hour that we could carry it into the cabin and batter it about like a piece of lead until it 'began warming up, then it would return to its original elusive form. “Well, that method of measuring cold was in vogue from March 11 to March 21. There was not a day during all that time that the pan of ‘quick’ would not freeze solid in from thirty to sixty minutes. That was the only way we computed the degree of cold. When the ‘quick’ became solidified In thirty minutes we knew that it wai 60 degrees below zero. When it tool an hour to freeze' up it was thirty de grees warmer. The cold-registering device was simple, if you only knew how to go about it, and I honestly believe the miners in that placer camp at Silver Bow during that never-to-be-forgotten March recorded the weather accurately. “Anyway, it was satisfactory to all concerned, and that is a whole lot more than one can say of the expensive weather bureau at present conducted by Uncle Sam.”