AWFUL STORM IN AMERICA. HUNDREDS OF FARMERS LOSE THEIR LIVES.

Waikato Times, Volume III, Issue 162, 22 May 1873, Page 2

AWFUL STORM IN AMERICA. HUNDREDS OF FARMERS LOSE THEIR LIVES.

S niK of the*ttorth-westera States of America li^ve been visited With 4 mow sun oil, which has had no parallel in moletQf- Jamety' and whickCllfceralljr turned the whole of Minnjjiuta iriW a Polar <Wion. Bfab morning of the 7th Janu^f was jbright and^klmySpnt about noon tbo tUentiOtneter fell 50 deg. of Falfflfijieit in a few minutes, and bafore two' d'clbuk. p.m., a/lpLmg front, a fierce whirlwind, and a blinding dnDjptpjft oarae on with tlie startling suddonneui of a tropical typhoon ; so that according to the New York correspondent of the Standard, " the frost did its terrible work with the swiftness and certainty of fire. It seemed the mocking revoke of the great conflagration that had incinerated tlie lake region of the Wesfc manj months ago." Tlio s'onn lusted for 53 hours, »s<s fi» thermometer at Memphis, m Tennessee, which lie's m the same latitude north in Wagga Wugga, $*>w South Wales- doe 3 south, marked tlie extreme dopre-uion of 8" deg. below zero. According to the latest account*, upwards of 700' persona were frozen "to death, besides an innuendo number of horees and cuttle. OVer an immense expanse of country the snow lay from 20 to 30 feet in depth, and tbe hurricane mored at the rate? of a. mile in a minute In the Susquehanna antice gorge two mile* wide and eight niiloblor»g,,redembling an enormous glacier, q ivo pup pie a rivid idea of what tlie country was like during the glacical epoch. Tlio JV>w York Herald of January 22nd gives the following respecting this dreadful tempest which has devastated Minnesota : — - " Between 12 and 2 o'clock oni Tuesday the sky turned 4 livid ; the sun. became merely a dull brazen ring ; the south wind chopped round rapidly, and became cold, and in a few minutes wa* laden with fine frost, snow-drift that stung like n shower of needles. So utterly unprepared' were the people for the change in tlie weather, and so suddenly did it come upon them; that one man at Winnebago City describes it as ' if a man clapped his hands so, and §now came in ouriices.' Knowing what this hurricane boded, men leaped mte^heir sleighs, and with toico and lash urged their cowering horses out into the storm. Then the work of death began; for more than 50 hours till late on Thursday, the freezing w ind and' falling snow continued. It w«s not a steady fall of snow, but a howling hurricane, the wind sometimes attaining a speed of twenty-eight, thirty, or thirty-two miles. Tie snow c.vme m fitful Hurries, with a wild speech and a stinging whiz. The thermometer HI steadily, till at Chambyslam it r-<nstered 5 1 deg below zero At other places the mercury or°spint marked fro-n 8 to 40 deg. below zero. " Some of the farmers who set out soou found that if they valued life they must turn back. They were enveloped iv sheets of snow that blinded them. The wmd came so fiercely that they were fain to stop and turn round till a momentary lull came. The road — why, the level prairie was all road row, without one fcvack of wheel or runner to indicate the path of safety. Wherever there was a slight knoll or a tree, the driving snow-sleet curled round it and broke over it like yeasty billows over a wreck, and far to leeward grew up drifts of eccentric form. Then. the snorting horses that toiled along pressed with their heaving flanks close to each other \ for warmth and dumb protection and sympathy, and refused to go forward, Ilie driver felt himself becoming listless ; his cold limbs were growing warm, and warned of tlie swift coming of death, he turned and retraced his steps. Happy they who did so betimes. There wore many who . held on stubbornly until it was too late There whe-re many who, goaded on bv a dreadful fear of the fate of their flues and .little ones left alone in their frail citadels, forced on through the drifts that grew deeper every step, and cold that becamo more intense e\ery moment. And there were others who grow weary of contest, and lying down in their robes, were 1 lulled by the elemental rage into a slumber which knew no awakening. Sometimes the horses pave out, and the unhappy dm cr, benumbed and chilled, his movements impeded by his heavy clothing, had to abandon his team and take to the drifts. The moans and shrieks of the horses that found ' themselves nths deserted by their masters are said by some few who survived such scenes to have been agonising to hear. 1 " And at their homes things were no better. Thiee was, 5 perhaps, a scauty supply of fuel in the corner, and but a y day's food in the larder. Night trod closely on the heels of noon. Perhaps the mother was .alone with her suckling ' child, her husband ten miles away m one direction, her fc children two miles away in another . These hapless pareuts > suffered countless death. The wooden buildings cracked and rocked m. the swing of the storm like ships at sea „ | the>timbers cracked with the frost like rifles. Beads of frost stood on every piece of woodwork ; the small panes of glass were so thick with ice that there was no chance that the ! lamp set in the casement could send its feeble light to the ' belated stragglers without. It was impossible to open the doors, so high were the drifts. The fire grew low, though it 1 was replenished' with Hie scanty furniture. Day succeeded to darkness, but the day was as the night. Only the chimney ; of the house appeared' above the drifts. Tht> poor -woman knew that her children lny dead hand in hand on the prairie, ' and that her husbxnd's corpse was somewhere entombed in a • giant drift. The little baby's blue lips were laid against her 1 empty breast, and soul had sped from between them in a 1 little' cloud of frozen vapor. She lay down and died, nnd > the relenting winds wafted through the apertures of tie room a decent drift of diamond snow for her winding-sheet . ''■> "On the railroads there was not absolute suffering. Of > course, trains were snowed in for days m drifts that towered ■ to the wires, and passengers had to shiver and be scantily fed; but this was only a trifle. " When Friday, the 10th, came, the sun rose upon a ■ kind of snow and silence. Drifts many feet deep an d many t square miles in extent were there. Here and there a i chimney of a house stood up like a toomb-stone in a vast i cemetery, the land lay like a corpse under a winding-sheet s that had moulded itself into occasional wrinkles over the ■ dead limbs and set features. Now came the labor of J clearing away the giant drifts and setting free the irab prisoned trains and the sadder task of tracing through^ b the prairies the steps of the dead. Everywhere they were i found lying still and statue-like in the icy embrace o( 3 death. Sometimes the searchers would find man and horses , together — the former lying dead, wrapped in his robes, w ith t the whip in his hand ; in the sleigh o»e horse down, tlio ii othti\ standing to the spot where he was fastened by his r partner's fall till he shared his partner's fate. Sometimes y the sleigh was found overturned, with the traces cut ; then to right or left would b« discovered the driver, who had wandered round in a despairing circle to die. Occasionally the beasts showed 1 im their dilated nostrils, widely-spread lips, and starug eyca,. the signs of mortal terror ; and the mm, too, were Laocoons of ice, statues of writhing despair. But, as a rule, death came quietly, as it generally does in f these cases, first robbing the victim of the cousciousness of approaching death, which begets an agonised struggle for life, and st illing him with a stupor said to be as delicious as it is deadly. The death roll cannot yet bo made- up with any reasonable degree of certainty."