Nothing for severity has been known to
equal it during a long series of years. East, West, North, and South it
was all the same, differing in degree of course, but uniformly colder
than scarce ever known in the same latitude.
The greatest loss to stock so far as heard from was in that in transit
to market. On some of the roads the losses were heavy. A dispatch from
Independence, Mo., says a train of fifteen cars, loaded with mules from
Texas via the Iron Mountain and Southern road, arrived there on the 5th,
when it was discovered that at least 100 of the mules had frozen to
death, and the others were in a freezing condition. The mules were two
years old and direct from grass. They had been three days without food.
Many trains arriving at Chicago had scores of frozen animals.
No great disaster is yet reported from the far West or from Minnesota
and Dakota. Still there must have been great suffering not only among
the dumb brutes, but among human beings as well. It is fortunate that
polar waves do not visit us more frequently.
The effect upon fruit, buds, trees, and shrubs is not yet ascertained.
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