Page:In the high heavens.djvu/282

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278
IN THE HIGH HEAVENS.

to dry in the morning remained wet till evening, even though the tropical sun beat on them all the day long. Heat of a somewhat similar character appears to have been experienced in America at the end of last July.

It was about a fortnight or three weeks after the New "World had its scorching that the Old World was visited by the great heat-wave. Up to the beginning of August there does not seem to have been anything unusual in European temperatures; thus, for instance, at Berlin, on August 1, the highest thermometric reading was 72°, and the lowest 61°. Even on the 7th of August, the greatest and least temperatures at Vienna were no more than 70° and 61° respectively, but towards the middle of the month the ascent of the mercury in the thermometer became marked and rapid all over Europe.

By the 17th of August, a temperature had been reached at Vienna which seems to have rivalled that attained at New York nineteen days previously. We read that on the following day (18th of August) the thermometers at Vienna showed 107° in the shade; the telegrams declare that the streets are deserted, and considering what the feelings of the reporter must have been who described it, we excuse his exaggeration that the Ringstrass was "like a furnace."

On the 19th, Berlin is reported to be almost unbearable, and, on the same day, we read that the heat is tropical at Paris, where there have been many fatal cases of sunstroke. It is further stated that 100 oxen and 300 pigs were found dead from the heat in the railway trucks as they arrived in the meat-market at Villette.

On August 22, the phase described in the papers as "almost unbearable" is recorded at Vienna, and that this