Cambridge, Mass.
1899.
February.  
(No. 2).
disabled for two or three days. At Cambridge the thermometer
marked zero at 7 A.M., 8 [degrees] at noon, and 10 [degrees] at 6 P.M. on the
12th; on the following day 8 [degrees] at 7 A.M., 10 [degrees] at noon and 18 [degrees] at
6 P.M. During both days as well as the intervening night
snow fell almost continuously, but most heavily on the after-
noon and evening of the 13th. The 14th was cloudless with a
temperature of 14 [degrees] at 7 A.M. and 22 [degrees] at noon. Throughout the
South Atlantic and Gulf States, exclusive of central and
southern Florida, this storm was in some respects actually
more severe than at the North. The snow fall varied from
five to eighteen inches and the mercury sank, at very many
places, nearly to zero while at a few it went below zero. In
Louisiana all the orange trees are said to have perished. At
New Orleans the mercury fell to 6 [degrees].
  A.T. Wayne, writing from Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina,
Feb. 18th, says:- "We have just passed through the coldest
weather ever known here for 200 years. Thermometer on Monday,
13th, 9 [degrees] above zero and on Tuesday at 6.55 A.M., 5 [degrees] above zero!
The whole country was covered with snow to the depth of 5 inch-
es and drifts were two feet deep. The mortality among birds
was simply appalling: Fox Sparrows and Snow birds perished by
the millions. Grass Finches, Chipping Sparrows, Cat birds,
Doves, Killdeer, and innumerable Woodcock were frozen to 
death.
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