Snowflakes

Abstract

IN your issue of January 20 (p. 271) is an interesting sketch of the snowstorm of January 7, 1887, with mention of snowflakes 31/2 inches long. Without vouching for the exact details I send you some statements from a letter in the New York World of today's issue. The letter is dated Fort Keogh, Montana, U.S., February 13. “The winter of 1886–87 will be long remembered throughout the north-west for the extreme severity of the temperature and the unusual depth of snow. From January 6 to 11 the degree of cold was something frightful. Mercury thermometers were often congealed, and spirit thermometers were kept jumping from 40° to 60° below zero. Half a dozen times has the 60° notch been touched, and once this season 621/2;° below zero has been scored on the Saskatchewan plains. But the authorities in weather in this country are the Indians. The oldest members of the Crow tribe say there have been few such winters as the present since they settled in the Yellowstone Valley. Curious phenomena sometimes attend a snowstorm. Near Matt. Coleman's ranch on January 28 the flakes were tremendous, some were larger than milk-pans. Some flakes measured 15 inches square and 8 inches thick. For miles the ground was covered with such bunches, and they made a remarkable spectacle while falling. A mail-carrier was caught in the same storm and verifies it.” The narrative is one of great suffering, and loss of human lives and cattle. “Miss Maggie Bunn, school-teacher at Highmore, while going from the school to her house was frozen to death. The bodies of three Indians who belonged to Berthold Agency were found frozen near Ashland.” And so on, in harrowing detail, for a number of whites perished.