The Coldest Place on Earth.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 376, 23 July 1903, Page 5

The Coldest Place on Earth.

'At present many people in this district maybe disp sed to think that they were inhabitants ;or the time being of the collet ?p t on earth. When, tho thermometer registered several degree? below zero, one is apt to imagine itis as cold as it Car. le ; but ns we know (hat cold is merely relative heat, so it is certain that the low temperatures which many of us have lately lived -through rife high to those which some human being- endure The coldest inhabited region on tho earth is the town of W'erc'- - jansk, in Siberia, si I uttod 67 de;, r 34 N latitude, and 133 deg 51 E lohjrtude. There «he lowest temperature observed is 90 4 dej.' 'F —a degree of cdd which no one in this country can

realise. Thare are'-'ool.y six mouths of the twelve when the average tempera ture is above zero • and only four wlio-.

it $ above fre*>ssitgp>; T.,0 terrible cold whiob prevails in »<„ * i«*n Siberiais luckily unaccomj tu.ied by wind, for otherwise no hmu in creature could exist there. The lowness of temperacure in this region of the globe dueto the fact that Eastern Siberia is not influenced by oceanic depressions; and " i dry atmosphere prevails. , In this *ay, the warm air currents are aided in their wcspp, while the high mountain ranges on the south and east tend to imprison the cold masses of air. The effects of cold on living organisms - in Siberia have been investigated by ' Hedenstrom aud WrangeH who. tell - us that every breath that is drawn •vbere the temperature sinks billow 40 «*eg F causes pain in the chest and lungsj In cases of intense frost, old tree trunks are split up, rocks are shattered, and deep chasms formed in the earth, from which streams of water ruah, only to be turned into ice.