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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The Winter in Europe. The earlier part 

 of the winter of 1879-'80, while it was ex- 

 ceptionally mild in America, was distin- 

 guished in Europe for its severity. In 

 France it is spoken of as the coldest winter 

 which has been recorded for more than a 

 century. It appears that the temperature 

 of October was a little below the usual 

 mean. November gave twelve days of 

 frost; and December surpassed everything 

 that had been known in Paris, in the in- 

 tensity and duration of the cold. From the 

 26th of November to the 28th of December, 

 that is, during thirty-three consecutive days, 

 there was frost every day, and during four- 

 teen days of the period, from the 14th to 

 the 28th of December, the thermometer did 

 not rise above the freezing-point. The be- 

 ginning of December was tempestuous. The 

 storm-center, coming up from the ocean on 

 the morning of the 3d, passed Paris be- 

 tween the 4th and 5th, accompanied by a 

 rapid depression of the barometer and a 

 perceptible rise of temperature from about 

 18. The storm, having caused great dam- 

 age in France, then went to the east, and 

 gradually diminished in intensity as it passed 

 over Germany. About ten inches of snow 

 fell during this storm, and four inches more 

 on the 8th, after which it cleared off, and 

 the extraordinary cold began. The mean 

 temperature of December in Paris is 38 ; 

 the temperature of December, 1879, was 

 18-3. The lowest mean temperatures pre- 

 viously recorded in the present century were 

 in 1812 (30-2), 1829 (25-7), and 1840 

 (27-9 c ). The nearest approach to the tem- 

 perature of the last December was probably 

 in December, 1788, but the uncertainty of 

 the observations taken at that period makes 

 an exact comparison impracticable. The 

 temperature on the 10th (-14) was the 

 lowest ever observed. The cold, at the 

 period of its greatest intensity, on the 9th 

 and 10th, presented a remarkable distribu- 

 tion over the surface of Europe. On the 

 first day, two centers of cold were mani- 

 fested, one being toward Poland, where the 

 thermometer sunk to 32, the other in 

 the French departments east of Paris. On 

 the second day, the former center had in- 

 creased in surface but diminished in inten- 

 sity, while the second center had extended 

 and had reached Paris, and the cold had 

 increased over nearly the whole of France. 



The temperature continued high on the bor- 

 ders of the British Channel and the ocean, 

 so that great contrasts were presented in 

 places not very far from each other accord- 

 ing as they were near to or removed from 

 the sea. Vegetation suffered from the dura- 

 tion of the cold, so that most of the exotics 

 in the public gardens were killed or greatly 

 injured. A zone of high pressure was es- 

 tablished in all the west of Europe after 

 the storm of the beginning of the month, 

 the center of which oscillated from France 

 to Poland and from Austria to Denmark. 

 It was observed that the low temperature 

 was special to the inferior regions of the 

 atmosphere. At the height of a little over 

 a thousand yards the air was much more 

 mild. During the latter part of the month 

 the thermometer on the Puy-de-Domc was 

 often thirty to forty degrees higher than at 

 Clermont, and on the Pic du Midi it rose 

 every day after the 19th to above the freez- 

 ing-point, while it was still always below it 

 at Paris. The cold terminated suddenly on 

 the 28th, with a storm from the North Sea ; 

 a thaw followed, with destructive floods. A 

 new cold term set in after the 4th of Janu- 

 ary, with a region of high pressure in the 

 center of Europe. The summits again 

 showed a higher temperature than the base 

 of the mountains. The region of extreme 

 cold was this time, however, in Russia. 



M. Marie Davy, Director of the Observa- 

 tory of Montsouris, remarks, in a communi- 

 cation to the Societe Francaise d'Hygiene, 

 that this has been the sixth severe winter 

 of the century ; and the six have recurred 

 with remarkable regularity in periods of 

 two each, viz.: 1788-'89 and 1794-'95, in- 

 terval six years; 1829-'30 and 1837-38, 

 interval eight years; 1871-72 and 1879- 

 '80, interval eight years. These periods 

 were each removed to a medium distance of 

 about forty -two years from each other. 

 The near equality of the periods of recur- 

 rence is probably a simple coincidence, but 

 it is nevertheless curious. M. Faye has pub- 

 lished an account of the meteorological ob- 

 servations, which have been made to the 

 month of May, 1879, at the observatory of 

 the French missionaries in China, at Zi-ka- 

 wei. From them the director of the obser- 

 vatory draws the conclusions 1. That 

 storms and tempests, and in general all 

 barometric depressions, are propagated in 



