MEN FROZEN TO DEATH. 127 



stock sustained by farmers and others on these 

 occasions, are often exceedingly severe, horses and 

 cattle being" frequently frozen to death in large numbers. 

 Even so far to the southwards as Texas these storms 

 occur at intervals with great intensity, and are some- 

 times very destructive. In consequence of the wind 

 being generally from the northward they are there 

 known as " Northers " and are much dreaded by 

 residents upon the plains, no part of which seems to 

 be exempt from their visitations. Throughout the whole 

 extent of the western prairies blizzards, attended by 

 disastrous consequences, occur during almost every 

 winter and "in the worst storms it is almost im- 

 possible for any man to be out." They are pretty 

 nearly always accompanied by heavy snow, whereby 

 landmarks are quickly obliterated, so that a man un- 

 fortunate enough to be overtaken by a bad blizzard, 

 upon the high plains, without a compass, is very apt 

 to lose his way and wander about in the blinding 

 snow drift, until overcome by cold and exhaustion. 

 A strange fact connected with these cases being 

 " that men found dead had evidently gone mad before 

 dying, and stripped themselves of their clothes ; 

 about half the bodies being found nearly naked." * 

 It seems hard at first sight to account for this re- 

 markable circumstance, but cold affects people in a 

 variety of different ways, and one of the effects of 

 great cold, as we know, is to produce an overpower- 

 ing tendency to sleep. The brain feels as if frozen: 

 the mind and memory quickly become affected; the 

 person reels about as if intoxicated; and violent deli- 



* Ranch Life, by Theodore Roosevelt, 1889. 



