THE HEAT WAVE.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 171, 31 July 1901, Page 4

THE HEAT WAVE.

FEARFUL DEATH-RATE. (i’cr R.M.S. Sierra at Auckland.) San Francisco, July 11. All the United States east of the Rocky Mountains has been visited by a hot wave, which grew more and more intense from abont June 24th to July 4th. The suffering was pitiful Many hundreds succumbed, and there wore thousands of prostrations which were not fatal. In each of the great cities there were hundreds of deaths from cholera. Infants’ conditions in New York wore particularly painful, owing to the great extent of crowded area. The I'olico Department issued orders for men, women, and children to bo permitted to sleep on the grass in the public squares, and thousands availed themselves of the privilege. At three o’clock in the morning trains and electric cars running out of the city wore packed with pooplc trying to escape from the oven which the city streets had become. More than a million people thus hurried out of the city. When a chango came it was in the form of sovero thunder storms, which caused many fires _ from lightning. The thermometer fell fifteen degrees in two hours. The weather has boon comfortable in the Middle and Western States since.