CLIMATE. 39 



The winters are peculiar. For a week each day will 

 be clear, calm, and like a mild October day of the East. 

 No overcoat is needed, and the presence of winter is 

 scarcely recognised. Then comes a storm ; the icy wind 

 cuts like a knife, no clothing seems to keep it from the 

 person, and penetrating to every part it drags out every 

 particle of vital heat, leaving but a stiffened corpse of him 

 who is so unfortunate as to be exposed to it. 



An exposure to the full force and fury of a violent 

 'plains Norther' would be certain death to any indigenous 

 animal. Buffalo and antelope fly before it, and seek pro- 

 tection in the deepest and most wooded canons. Near 

 Julesburg, I once saw the snow dotted with the bodies of 

 a great number of snow-birds frozen to death in a storm 

 of a few days before. Men suffer more than other animals. 

 Lacking the instinct of the latter, which enables them to 

 presage the coming storm, men new to plains life, misled 

 by the mildness of the ordinary winter weather, expose 

 themselves possibly in light clothing on the plains, are 

 caught in a storm, and perish miserably in a few hours. 



A gentleman, competent and in a position to form 

 a correct estimate, once told me that at least 100 

 buffalo-hunters had perished from cold in the coun- 

 try, within 100 miles of the Arkansas River, in two 

 years. During the winter of 1872-3 I was in command 

 at Fort Dodge, Kansas. At least seventy capital amputa- 

 tions were performed by the post surgeon on citzens who 

 were buffalo-hunters or railroad employes, whilst a much 

 greater number of frozen men were sent East for treat- 

 ment. I think it safe to say that over 200 men 

 in that vicinity lost hands or feet, or parts of them. One 

 poor fellow had both hands and both feet taken off, and 

 not only recovered, but was a few months ago in good 

 health and attending to his usual business. 



Fortunately for the habitability of the plains, these 

 excessively severe storms occur only a few times during 

 a winter, and are generally of but a few days' duration. 



