THE UNITED STATES

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 176, 28 June 1859, Page 4

THE UNITED STATES

The Melbourne Argus has an interesting article in which it calls attention to some of the wonders ofthe .rather obscure, science of meteorology. It mentions specially ,the unprecedented severity of, the past winter in, the . United States. Singularly enough* we observe from letters received from England that there has been aremarkably mild winter in that country, so much'so that in the latter part of the season fires have been felt an inconvenience.' This excess of cold on one side ofthe Atlantic, and unusual heat on the other, is worthy of'attention. We quote a portion of the article from the Argus referred to :— ; " In ,the early part of January, the Northern States of the American Union, and the adjacent. British .colonies, were suffering the rigours of an Arctic winter ; so much, so that the seventy ofthe cold experienced is asserted to havo been without a parallel. The-frost seems to have reached its culminating point on the Ilt.h January, when lhe thermometer fell to 50 degrees below zero at Montpelier, inthe State of Vermont; and throughout the States of Massachusetts and new Hampshire, the temperature ranged from 20 to 40 degrees below zero.

' ."Business appears to have, been partially suspended in Nevv-York, and' several;persons whose necessities compelled-them to be abroad perished by- the cold. Two omnibus drivers were frozen to death upon their seats;;and other drivers-lost the use of some of their limbs. Mail communication was interrupted between/the "Empire City1' and .various, portions of the Union, and a New; York paper states that at ©very station on'the. overland route to California from St.. Louis. toY Salt Lake ; City, which passes through a; tract of country lying in the same parallel of latitude as the-north of Spain, Sicily, and the,lsles of Greece,—men were found frozen to death—as many as ten having succumbed in one instance to the •' all-subcluing frost.' The periodical recurrence of these excessively inclement seasons, and the increasing intensity of the cold on each "occasion, lend some;; Countenance to the /theory that the climate of North America; is undergoing .a' progressive change, and. that the gradual destruction of .those vasts forests which once ; overshadowed the land and sheltered it from., the icy winds, ofthe keen north, is telling unfavorably upon the temperature of the States during the winter months. The winters of 1774,-,1835, ; 1848, and 1855, were extremely "severe in the eastern pro-vinces-of the Union, but even upon what is popularly known-as 'Cold 'Tuesday,'- on the Uth of January (a singular'coincidence of date), .848, the; thermometer did not fall so low by ten degrees as it did upon the same day of the present "year."