OLD-FASHIONED WINTERS

Evening Star, Issue 20196, 8 June 1929, Page 18

OLD-FASHIONED WINTERS

CONDITIONS IN EUROPE In connection with the recent cold weather in Europe, a subscriber forwards the following clipping : In 4.01 the Black Sea was entirely frozen oyer. In 703 not only the Black Sen, but the Straits of Dardanelles, wore frozen over; the snow in some places rose fifty feet high. In 822 the great rivers of Europe, the Danube, the Elbe, etc., were so hard frozen as to hear heavy waggons for a month. In 860 Adriatic was frozen. In 991 everything was frozen, the crops totally failed, and famine and pestilence closed the year. In 1C67 most of the travellers in Germany were frozen to death on the roads. In 1134 the Po was frozen from Cremona to the sea; the win© sacks were burst, and the trees split by the action of the frost with immense noise.

In 1236 the Danube was frozen to the bottom, and remained long in that state. In 1316 the crops wholly failed in Germany; wheat which some years before sold in England at six shillings the quarter, rose to two pounds. In 1308 the crops failed in Scotland, and such a famine ensued that the poor were reduced to feed on grass, and many perished miserably in the fields. The successive winters of 1432-3-4 were uncommonly severe. In 1368 the wine distributed'to the soldiers was cut with hatchets. In 1633 it was excessively cold. _ Coaches drove along the Thames, the ice of which was eleven inches thick. In 1709 occurred the Cold "Winter; the frost penetrated the earth throe yards into the ground. In 1715 booths were erected on the Thames. 1n'1744 ftncl 1745 the strongest ale in England, exposed to the air, was covered in less than fifteen minutes with an ice an eighth of an inch thick. Some years later, in 1809, and again in 1812, the winters were remarkably coid. In 1814 there was a fair on the frozen Thames.