Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1890 — PLACES THAT ARE HOT. [ARTICLE]

PLACES THAT ARE HOT.

■ Apots Where Our Highest Temperatures Would Be Called Cold Wares. Pittsburg Dispatch. Hottest of torrid spots upon the summer earth is Aden, at the mouth of the Red Sea, where the English government maintains a coal pile for its navy and a force of soldiers to watch the pile, lest it be set afire by jealous powers. They lead the life of lonely salamanders upon their isolated rock, with a view of almost boiling sea in one direction, w4th wide stretches of baked sand in the other, and behind them rugged ranges of mountains, dry and red, where no green thing is ever seen to grow. No matter whence the wind may blow, it brings no moisture to the straits of Bab el Mandeb—even dew is a rare phenomenon, for the clouds which appear in the sky at sunset serve as blankets to make the night stagnant with heat more unendurable than the blazing sun by day. About once in four years the thermometer registers aa low ae SO degrees in the coolest part of the day, just before sunrise; the lowest point of orjtegg£.oightaisfuHys'idKgrFiffswftisnaiL2 But with the sun returns- the heat; hour by hour the murcury in the thermometer emplates the course of the sun in the sky; it climbs higher and higher, and brings more discoms fort to suffering humanity. Shortly after midday it reaches its highest notch; which it maintains until nearly sunset, and it is never lower than 135 degrees in the shade, —. It rains on this blistered military post about once in three years, and that is the sole water supply, for there are no springs, and well-borings tap nothing but seams of eternal drought. As much else in Arabia King Solomon is credited with the responsibility for the Aden reservoirs, and, to this day, they are called King Solomon's well. Here is collected the water of the triennial shower, and, by economical use, it may be made to last until the rain comes again. Bad as is the case at the southwest corner of Arabia, it is even worse at the southeast angle, where lie the Bahrein islands just off the coast of Oman. It is almost as hot here as at Aden, and there is the additional discomfort that it never rains at all. Dates grow upon the islands and provide for the population ; for their drinking water they are forced to seek it in the sea, which is the last place where one would expect to find fresh water. Strange as it may seem., not a drop of water is drunk by the Bahrein islanders which has not been brought from the bottom of the sea. Springs exist at a depth of several fathoms, and the only way of getting a drink is to dive for it. Waterbearers go down with empty skins and bring them up full to peddle the precious contents. It is not within the tropics that one finds the maximum heat, nor is the heat of the torrid zone so insupportable as summer extremes in more perate zones. —If the recent hot spell in Chicago had occurred in the Java season it would probably have depopulated the archipeligo with cholera, yet the average heat of the Maylayan islands is more than eighty degrees. The cause is riot far to seek; the people are accustomed to a climate of moderate range, and do not have to exhaust their vitality in supporting great cold for a large portion of the year. Their syss terns grow used to a certain amount of heat, and their mode of living is conformed to that standard. Australia is probably the hottest of the temperate lands inhabited by white races, and it is at the same time almost the driest, excluding such absolute deserts as a large portion of the Pacific coast Of South America. From the time when its summer begins, in September, until the coming of winter, in July, the earth gives up all its moisture, almost the largest bodies of water dry up, the air is dry and day by day the sun se'ads down ever fiercer beams. Adelaide, whioh is upon the south shore of the continent, finds 115 degrees no unusual temperature for Christmas and an additional 10 degrees scarcely calls for comment in the journals. Not content with the appalling state of the thermometer in the shade, they expose it to the sun and find to their dismay a temperature of an where from 150 degrees to 190 degrees. Sheep and cattle die. yet men manage to live, and, despite the torrid heat, never have ice. The nearest approach to a cooling drink is water from canvas bags, which is cooled by constant evaporation. There is an interesting comparison—America uses ice water and suffers sunstroke; Australia, with much greater heat, knows neither sunstroke nor ice water.