THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



21 



— tlie oak, tlie elm and other hard wood trees died 

 after having leaved out. At Fort Niagara on Ontario, 

 where in 1626 we saw the site of a beautiful gar- 

 den with the cottage and outhouses of the ferry- 

 man across the mouth of the stream, the whole 

 was several feet under water, and the buildings 

 were moved from their foundations. On the whole 

 southern shore of Erie,the lake is annually making 

 inroads : a rise of ten feet more, it is said, wovild 

 throw the Canada peninsula between Erie and On- 

 tario under water — a rise of fifty feet would del- 

 uge the greater part of tlie western country. 



It has been suggested by geologists that the rise 

 of the water in the lakes may be a consequence of 

 internal volcanoes throwing up the surface of the 

 ground at the bottom of those lakes. That there has 

 been a rise of ground for many hundred miles on 

 the coast of Chili and tho shores of the Pacific 

 ocean in South America, seems to be established by 

 concurrent testimony. May not a similar cause, 

 operating to upheave the waters of the great lakes 

 already several hundred feet elevated above the 

 level of the ocean, at this time, have so affected the 

 temperature of those waters as to prevent their icy 

 congelation f 



Mr. Jacob Blodget of Canterbury, sold ayoke 

 of oxen to the Messrs. Blakos of this "town, in Jan- 

 uary, weighing each between ilOO and 1000 lbs, 

 which are among the best and fattest that have 

 been here slaughtered during the present year. 

 These oxen were fattened, with the exception of 

 only a few days before they were killed, on ruta 

 baga exclusively : they were kept at work almost 

 daily until the commencement of winter. Mr. 

 Blodget is of opinion that these oxen thrived as 

 fast on ruta baga as they would have done on any 

 other article whatever. 



There is nothing more unerring than the instinct 

 of most animals : the rat, when it has a chance, in- 

 variably chooses the richest food. We have found 

 during the present winter, on our premises, that 

 rats have not meddled witli Indian corn and other 

 grains to which they have had access ; they have 

 left the potato and English turnip, and tliey liave 

 rarely touched the red beet and the carrot. The 

 ruta baga they have taken hold of with appetite; 

 hut most larcnous of all have tlieij levn on the sugar 

 beet. To our mind thi:; is conclusive evidence of 

 the value of ruta baga and sugar beet as the best 

 roots for cattle and perhaps for horses and hogs. 

 It is said fifteen tons of the sugar beet is an ordin- 

 ary crop to an acre well prepared ; this fifteen tons 

 of beet we are of opinion will go farther in win- 

 tering a stock of cattle than half that weight of the 

 best English hay. 



E.xtraordiuary change of weather. 



Thursday morning, Jan, 24th, the Thermometer 

 in the open air was fifteen degrees below zero : not 

 the atmosphere alone, but the ground, slightly 

 covered with snow and ice, seemed to be fixed in 

 immovable frost ; the cold continued through that 

 day into Friday evening, when there were indica- 

 tions of wind from the south. Before morning we 

 heard the dripping of water from the roof of the 

 house : on Saturday, a cold rain opened in the 

 morning with wind nearly due cast, and a prospect 

 that it might change to snow ; at noon, the wind 

 southeast with the rain increasing : at five, P.M. 

 the wind blowing a gale : at seven, the gale in- 

 creased almost to a hurricane, breaking down gates 

 and batlustrades and tearing Uj) shingles and zinc 

 from the roofs of houses, with no abatement of the 

 rain. On Sunday morning at day-light the wind 

 changed to the west, and the fallen water, without 

 perforating the frost, had almost entirely discharg- 

 ed itself into the larger streams. The ice of the 

 Merrimack river directly in sight, on consultation, 

 it was thought presented too great a barrier to be 

 broken up ; but after breakfast it was seen briskly 

 moving down the stream. At noon, when return- 

 ing from church, we perceived the water had back- 

 ed up so as to cover the low intervales : it contin- 

 ued to rise during the hour's vacation, but not so 

 much as to be immediately alarming. Returning 

 from tlie afternoon service, the rise had been at 

 least a foot an hour ; the main channel of the river 

 had become blocked with ice, and the current 

 seemed to be turned to the foot of the hill near the 

 main street. Mere we found boards and rails laid, as 

 we supposed, at a safe distance above the common 

 freshets, floating off: set to vrork to rescue them 

 from danirer by throwing them upon a ridge three 

 feet hio-herthan the water. While this was doing,in 

 the space of fifteen or twenty minutes the water 

 fell, as marked by the trees and fences, at least six 

 inches ; and the hope and expectation was, that it 

 had gained its utmost height. Soon after dark at 

 this particular point it took a rise in one half horn- 



of more than two feet, and before nine in the even- 

 ing the materials that had been rescued and taken, 

 as was supposed, out of harm's way were again a- 

 float in the stream. Monday morning, nearly the 

 whole of the extensive intervale in sight was like 

 a vast sea — a portion covered with interfering 

 cakes of ice and a portion with the smooth expanse 

 of water ; and at the time of sunsetting while we 

 write this article, the covering of water continues, 

 havino- fallen a very few inches. The damming up 

 and breaking away of the ice yesterday and last 

 evening produced the most extraordinary ri.se and 

 fall of vvater that has ever been noticed on this river. 

 As might be anticipated with certainty from such 

 a winter freshet, the three bridges which cross the 

 Merrimack in this town have been either carried 

 off or disabled. Sewali's falls bridge, lately erect- 

 ed, four miles from the village, was carried off ear- 

 ly in the day : the bridge leading from the north 

 end of the village suffered the loss of a pier in the 

 afternoon : tlie bridge at the south end stood thro' 

 the day and its stone piers encountered several 

 successive blows from immense cakes of ice until 

 about nine o'clock in the evening, when one piece, 

 forced down the stream with more povvfer than the 

 others, in an instant struck out the mass of rocks 

 composing tlie western pier and precipitated that 

 portion of the bridge resting upon the length of 

 two sets of string pieces into the stream, leaving at 

 present no passage between the two parts of the 

 town. At this time (Monday evening) the cold 

 has again returned, the wind blows severely from 

 the northwest, and the thermometer is down well 

 towards zero. 



Never, in the winter, did we witness changes so 

 sudden and so frightful. 



Now that the waters have subsided, the ice on 

 the extensive intervale fronting Concord main 

 street presents a singular appearance. Much of it 

 rests upon the top of fences and among the limbs 

 of trees several feet above the ground about it. 

 Bridges as far up as Ilolderness have been brought 

 down and are jambed into the ice upon our inter- 

 vales. The bridge at Amoskeag was carried off : 

 that at Hooksett stands. Parts of the dams above 

 Hooksett falls and above Garvin's falls were carri- 

 ed off, leaving much to be done in the spring be- 

 fore boats and rafts can pass the canals at those 

 falls. The Federal bridge in this town has now 

 (Feb. 8) been so fir repaired as to be passable with 

 carriages. The bridges at Bo.scawen and Franklin 

 are carried away — that at New Chester stands 



The damage on the Merrimack, upon the whole, 

 is not so great as it has been in some other places. 

 A similarlreshet, in which the water rose higher, 

 breaking up the ice which was several inches 

 thicker,' occurred in March ISiii. Then as now the 

 ice rested upon the ground to the depth of several 

 feet. At that time the bark was stricken from the 

 trees to the height of ten feet from the ground ; 

 and then, as at this time, it took many Iiands several 

 days to cut a palli over and through the ice from 

 Horse-shoe pond to the Federal Bridge in this 

 town. 



Tlie water rose on Connecticut river higher 

 and more suddenly than upon the Merrimack. At 

 Hartford, Ct. a bridge was carried off, and the ice 

 and water floated through the streets of the lower 

 part of the city. At Bellows Falls the water is 

 stated to have risen twenty feet above low water 

 mark. All the bridges from Lancaster north to 

 the head of the river were carried away. 



On the Kenncbeck and Androscoggiij in 

 Maine, the water rose eleven feet in the course of 

 three hours I The mills at Brunswick were swept 

 away. At Hallowell the water was four feet deep 

 in the main street. Houses and barns were blown 

 do%yn. But, as a very important item, the Great 

 Dam at Augusta constructed by Col. Boardman of 

 Nashua, resisted the force of the descending ice 

 and stood well. On the Saco river from its head 

 to Fryeburg, Me. the bridges were taken off. The 

 sudden rises of water have made frightful work on 

 tho White mountains at the sources of the Saco 

 and Ammonoosuck in former times. 



On the Hudson, at Albany, damage to the amount 

 of nearly a million of dollars was sustained. The 

 great steam boat North America went down with 

 the ice and is a total loss. The whole pier in front 

 as well as the lower streets of the city, were cov- 

 ered with water and ice. 



At New York city the water flooded the cellars 

 on the water side, and the damage was great. 



Tho rail-road south from Philadelphia to Wash- 

 ington was rendered impassable. The waters of 

 the Schuylkill have not been known so high for 

 twenty years. The houses of many poor men on 

 its banks have been swept off. 



The New Hampshire Gazette contains an ac- 

 count of the truly appaling situation in which the 



keepers of three light-houses were placed during 

 the storm : these three lights are nearest the har- 

 bor of Portsmouth. "Whale's Back" is some five 

 miles from the town, and is a ledge of sunken 

 rocks visible only at low water. A large rock join- 

 ing the lower tier of the foundation was carried a- 

 way : the sea broke over the building in a similar 

 manner to that represented in the Penny Magazine 

 over the famed Eddystone light house. The sea 

 struck on the Whale's Back as with sudden and 

 heavy blows. "White Island" light is on one of the 

 Shoala further out to sea : here the sea made a 

 breach over that part of the island where the light 

 house stands lorty feet above low water mark — 

 eighty feet of covered way from the keeper's house 

 to the light were carried away. At "Boon Island" 

 light house, the sea covered all the ground about 

 the buildings, and entered both the dwelling and 

 the light house, to the elevated part of which the 

 family retreated. Laisge rooks in front of the build- 

 ings were washed off. 



Such storms as that of the 26th January on the 

 islands and coasts of the sea, and near every 

 stream as it flows from its source to the ocean, are 

 bringing about those changes which cause the sea 

 to become dry land and land to become ocean. The 

 change is trivial during one hundred years or the 

 age of one man ; but a succession of storms, hurri- 

 canes and earthquakes, has undoubtedly since 

 Creation, revolutionized not the face of the earth 

 alone, but changing climate with change of loca- 

 tion has produced successively new creations of 

 beings. Man, more intelligent than all others, is 

 one of the most recent beings created by that 

 Power, v/hose word brought all things into exis- 

 tence in the six figurative days, embracing time 

 beyond human calculation or ken anterior to his 

 own creation. 



[O'Rochestor, in New York, v.-esterly of this say 

 3.50 miles, was the scene of an old fashioned snow 

 storm soon after the great rain and freshet further 

 east. The snow there fell and laid upon the ground 

 to the depth of three and four feet. 



Philosophy of the late storm. 



The reasons for the changes of weather, and the 

 philosophy of the atmosphere, are quite as well un- 

 derstood by the man who watches for the signs in 

 the clouds as by tho student at his books. The 

 strata of clouds beneath and above show the differ- 

 ing currents of the air sometimes passing in two or 

 more directions, quite as plainly as the changes in 

 the course of the inflated balloon as it rises into the 

 upper atmospliere. Yet few people seem to realize 

 that v/hile we have at the surface of the earth a fair 

 wind from the west, a strong easterly wind maybe 

 gaining over head until a changed blow shall reach 

 the earth. Wh}' does a long and cold and severe 

 northeast storm generally succeed a warm sun and 

 pleasant wind from the southwest, and begin in the 

 south.' Because the warm humid aii rushing for- 

 ward till it reaches and is overpov/ered by the cold 

 vacuum, whirls over at a higher elevation, and re- 

 turns with a discharge to the earth, it may be first 

 in sleet, and afterwards in clear and more dry snow. 



How will the reader account for the storm of the 

 26th of January, which was discharged all along 

 the Atlantic coast in a copious rain, and the same 

 storm, from twelve to twenty-four hours afterwards 

 at Rochester, N. Y. a distance of three hundred 

 miles from the ocean, discharging a dr}', drifting 

 snow to the depth of three and four feet.' It will 

 be GXpluined on the same principle that we have 

 stated of the northeasterly storm. At Rochester a 

 dark cloud first came from the wesi, discharging 

 sleet — afterwards it changed to northwest, north 

 and north cast, the wind being so still as almost to 

 suffer a perpendicular fall of snow a part of the 

 time. The strength of the blow from the coast 

 carried the warm air and rain beyond the usual dis- 

 tance — the warmed atmosphere from the south 

 rushed into the cooled atmosphere of the north un- 

 til overpowered by the latter when it reached the 

 region of the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario, 

 where it was arrested and returned by whirling 

 over at a high elevation in a contrary direction : 

 first the colder air came from the west while the 

 moisture of the clouds became sleet, and as the cold 

 air gradually preponderated, the course of the wind 

 changed from a direction westerly to the north- 

 east when the whole volume of humidity which 

 the milder climate had drawn into the air from the 

 ocean and land was discharged in flakes of snow 

 piled up until the roads were impassable. This 

 great amount of snow there was an increased a- 

 mount of rain here ; and when it is considered 

 that all must be discharged to the ocean, tlie frost 

 not suffering tlie ground to retain any portion ofit, 

 by the smaller into and through the larger streams, 



