Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1901 — CURRENT COMMENT [ARTICLE]

CURRENT COMMENT

Cariosities of the Heat Wave.

Although fluctuations in the weather in the temperate zone are a frequent cause of discomfort it is not often that, as in the case of the recent heat wave, excessive temperatures become a direct menace to life. ’The abnormal heat which recently prevailed over a large area of the country suddenly placed the people of a temperate climate under conditions actually, and not relatively, tropical. Some idea of the hardship which the {►cople of northern cities have to undergo in weather of this kind may be gained by comparing the ordinary temperatures in those places with that prevailing in the Southern cities, where the thermometer is commonly much higher, where the people are accustomed to heat and have formed habits which enable them to bear it without discomfort. In New Orleans, for instance, the thermometer showed an average of 78 degrees, with a maximum temperature of 92, while in New York the thermometer stood at 90. In Vicksburg the temperature was 90, in Memphis 92. in Atlanta 80, rising to 80, in Galveston 84, in Nashville 82 and in El Paso 74, with a maximum of 92. And while the tropical South, habituated to hot weather, wus experiencing these comparatively reasonable temperatures it was well above 90 in a majority of the large cities of the North. The numerous futulities caused by such a visitation of hot weather may be uscrilted to the fact that for a time the I>eople of a temperate zone find' themselves thrnst into the conditions of the tropics—conditions for which they are ucver prepared. The resident* of Manila, for instance, would have found New York's recent high temperature uncomfortable, but they would not have succumbed to it. That Northern seaboard cities should be subjected to such temperatures while those of the Gulf sn/J South Atlantic coasts are in comparative comfort is only one of the anomalies of a climate which seems to require that Its inhabitants be prepared to meet any degree of heat or cold which man can lx*ar and live.—Chicago News.