THE WEATHER IN BRITAIN AND EUROPE.

Kumara Times, Issue 1058, 20 February 1880, Page 4

THE WEATHER IN BRITAIN AND EUROPE.

On the Continent, as well aa in the British Islands, the present season is on all hands admitted to be the severest on record. On Dec. 10 the Centigrade thermometer is. stated to have registered no less than 28 degrees below zero at Versailles and Orleans. This is equivalent to rather more than 50 degrees below freezing point, or 18 degrees below zero, according to Fahrenheit’s theremometer, which is in more general use than the Centigrade in this country. In Switzerland and South Germany the newspapers are every day publishing accounts of men women, and children, as well as domestic animals, being frozen to death, and the oldest inhabitants have to go back to the winter of 1829-30 for a season when the cold was as rigorous as that which has prevailed during the past two or three weeks. The Gazette de France gives a brief enumeration of the coldest winters known in France since the 15th century. At the close of “ the great winter” of 1408 all the bridges over the Seine at Paris were torn down by the floods, carrying with them immense blocks of ice. In 1420 there were numbers of people frozen to death, and the wolves are said to have appeared in the streets of Paris and there. to have eaten up some of the corpses. In 1507 the harbor of Marseilles was frozen up. In 1544 the frozen wine had to be broken up with axes and sold by weight. In 1907 cattle were frozen to death in their stalls, Paris suffered from a dearth of wood—its ordinary fuel—and people used to drive in carriages and sledges across the Seine. In 1665 the temperature sank to 22h degrees of cold in Paris. In 1700 the cold fell to 23 degrees below zero; the Mediterranean was frozen in several places on the French coast, and the same was the case in some harbors on the Channel. Most of the trees in France were during this winter destroyed by the cold : wine was frozen , into solid masses in the cellars, and a ' famine prevailed. In 1783 Paris experienced 19 degrees of cold. The frost lasted sixty-three consecutive days, and the Seine was frozen up for two full months. In 1788 the ice on the great canal at Versailles was 12in. thick. In 1765 the cold attained 23 degrees below zero in Paris ; the frost continued fortytwo days j and the Dutch fleet, which was frozen up In harbor, was captured by the French cavalry—the original, we presume, of the celebrated corps of the Horse Marines. In 1830 the thermometer registered 17 degrees of cold in Paris; all the rivers of France were frozen over, and many men and animals lost their lives by the frost. In 1853 almost all the rivers of Europe were frozen. In 1871 Paris experienced 22 degrees of cold, but the frost did not last long, and the ice on the Seine broke np on the second day after covering the river, . Railway and telegraphic communication with Paris has been seriously interrupted by the snow. Many of . the railways .are blocked, and the post-office at Paris has issued a notice stating that there was no communication with a large number of places. A passenger train ran into a goods train which had struck fast in the snow on the Eastern line, near Bondy, and nine persons were injured, and an official was killed. The Countess Beust was in the train, but was unhurt. In Paris the tramcars have ceased running, a few omnibuses crawl along at a very slow pace, and cabs are only to be had at fancy prices.