I seek some assistance from our veteran AWers present on this board; I am seeking historical sources of animal fatalities in great numbers and large collections of weather-related fatalities of a small town nature. Not, popular accounts like the Donner Party, but more pioneer accounts, rural American accounts and accounts from the fur trade.
Does Anyone Know of Any Sources of Accounts of 1600's-1800's Weather-Related Fatalities and... ?
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Look into the Blizzard on 1888; here were many animal fatalities. Also check out other great blizzards. There may have been some during the Year Without a Summer, but I don't remember.
The Peshtigo Fire of 1871. It holds the record for the most deaths by fire in U.S. history, but the event was overshadowed by the Great Chicago Fire which occurred on the same day. Between 1500 and 2500 human fatalities were estimated, with an untold number of animals deaths, both domesticated and wild.
Thank you, king neptune and mrsmig. Your information is so on point.
Should I be hunting down specific digests and Farmer's Almanacs for this sort of thing?
Should I be hunting down specific digests and Farmer's Almanacs for this sort of thing?
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Something like that, but I don't know what search terms one would use to find results that would include relevant events.
I have read of cattle dying in great numbers in Winter storms, but other than the Blizzard of 1888, I have no ide where or when such events happened.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/15/thousands-of-cattle-dead-dakota_n_4098768.html
This was not a unique event, but this was too recent for you.
The Saxby Gale of 1869 was fairly impressive - and predicted almost a year ahead of time, to the day, on the basis of almost crackpot theories. Lieutenant Saxby predicted the storm based on the fact that a perigean new moon would be more or less exactly over the equator. Saxby did not predict the location (and was on a different continent.)
However, October is definitely hurricane season, so predicting a storm for any day around then has a better-than-average chance of proving correct.
Moreover, a new moon does produce high tides that can augment a storm surge. A perigean new moon is 5% closer than average, so produces a lunar tide component about 15% higher than average (tidal force is inverse-cube.) This would have been fairly minimal in most places - but not in the Bay of Fundy, up which the storm tracked!
Neither of these is relevant to storm formation, however, and the moon being over the equator is relevant to nothing at all. So Saxby was incredibly lucky in his prediction (as were those who heeded his warning.)
However, October is definitely hurricane season, so predicting a storm for any day around then has a better-than-average chance of proving correct.
Moreover, a new moon does produce high tides that can augment a storm surge. A perigean new moon is 5% closer than average, so produces a lunar tide component about 15% higher than average (tidal force is inverse-cube.) This would have been fairly minimal in most places - but not in the Bay of Fundy, up which the storm tracked!
Neither of these is relevant to storm formation, however, and the moon being over the equator is relevant to nothing at all. So Saxby was incredibly lucky in his prediction (as were those who heeded his warning.)
I don't know that a Farmers' Almanac would be of much use, since it's mostly weather, tidal and planting forecasts and the odd article here and there.
I learned about the Peshtigo fire because I'd purchased a book from Amazon about another famous conflagration. Once you do that, their system will bring up books on similar topics. I've read at least one book about the Children's Blizzard thanks to a Amazon recommendation.
(On the downside, you can end up getting blitzed with recommendations. I've bought a few of Pratchett's Discworld series and now my recommendations list is nothing but Pratchett, Pratchett, Pratchett.)
King Neptune, that's the confounding problem. I cannot seem to find the exact words to target the right results from my Google searches.
You would hope to find newspaper reports from the 1800's, most likely
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_online_newspaper_archives
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlantic_hurricanes_in_the_18th_century
One ranch in eastern Torrance County lost 1,300 sheep from a herd of 1,700
http://www.weatherexplained.com/Vol-1/Winter-Storms.html
Sites about the Little Ice Age sometimes mention mass die-offs of animals.
http://isthereglobalcooling.com/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...A-scientists-right-Thames-freezing-again.html
good luck
If you pin down a specific area, then you can work through newspaper archives and other local records.
King Neptune,
Thank you, for narrowing the searches for just the right information. Have you ever used any of these articles yourself?
I focus a lot on the outdoors and animal behaviors to inform my settings and general world-building and study accounts like the Terror of Hunsoor or The Man-Eaters of Tsavo.
Thank you, for narrowing the searches for just the right information. Have you ever used any of these articles yourself?
I focus a lot on the outdoors and animal behaviors to inform my settings and general world-building and study accounts like the Terror of Hunsoor or The Man-Eaters of Tsavo.
I shared a couple of them on FB, and I have read some of them or similar articles in the past as general background.
I suspected that we were on the same page in this matter. For, in fact, I am studying George Lucas' Raiders of the Lost Ark to inform my work. If you read his transcript for the brainstorming session between himself, Steven Spielberg and the screenwriter who was Frank Marshall, I believe; he planned in detail the symbolism and the coolness in Indiana Jones' Whip and every aspect of his larger than life personality.
If I were to make a movie about steeling the Ark of the Covenant, then I would just steal it and film the event and the earlier steps that would be necessary.
You could try newspapers.com - you do have to pay a small fee, but there are tons of old newspapers available there.
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Yeah, I don't think there's any one-stop-shopping source for this info. You'll have to search old newspapers for specific events.
Here's a good free source for various old newspapers in the US and Canada. The site is a little slow sometimes (it posts each newspaper page as a PDF file, which can be a pain), but it's a pretty vast resource.
You can search the whole archive at once using whatever words or terms you want here: http://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html (ignore the "sign in" prompt. You don't have to sign in or register to search)
Or if you want individual papers from specific dates you can search each paper archive here: http://fultonhistory.com/my photo albums/All Newspapers/index.html
I like the site because it's one of the few places I've found that has an archive of the Police Gazette, the popular true-crime/pop culture magazine.
Here's a good free source for various old newspapers in the US and Canada. The site is a little slow sometimes (it posts each newspaper page as a PDF file, which can be a pain), but it's a pretty vast resource.
You can search the whole archive at once using whatever words or terms you want here: http://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html (ignore the "sign in" prompt. You don't have to sign in or register to search)
Or if you want individual papers from specific dates you can search each paper archive here: http://fultonhistory.com/my photo albums/All Newspapers/index.html
I like the site because it's one of the few places I've found that has an archive of the Police Gazette, the popular true-crime/pop culture magazine.
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I don't know about animals, but lots of people lost, I give you the Johnstown Flood:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Flood
I remember finding a book about it in the school library when I was in Jr High.
MM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Flood
I remember finding a book about it in the school library when I was in Jr High.
MM
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