Winter - A Year Without Summer

“All earth was but one thought and that was death….” Housebound in the Alps, Mary Shelley, husband-to-be, and Lord Bryon fight boredom during the dark, cold days of Summer; debris blocks the sun...

 

"All earth was but one thought and that was death…."

In 1816, Mary Shelley, her husband-to-be, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and his personal physician arrive at Lord Byron’s rented villa in the Swiss Alps for their summer vacation. Bitter cold replaces sun and warmth across the Northern Hemisphere, and famines, typhus epidemics, and widespread deaths follow.

Europeans rioting in the street and breaking into stores, crops failing in Europe and the US, freezing temperatures, "Eighteen hundred and froze to death," due to lack of sunlight.

The summer weather in parts of Europe was so bad that it reminded people of November. On June 16, Mary "Shelley" noted that the weather at Lake Geneva turned abruptly from dry and beautiful to lashing rain, howling winds and vicious lightning storms. Most were confined indoors on stormy June 22; rounds of ghost stories ensued.

"Lord Byron, it won’t solve anything to wear a path in the carpet," said Mary, as he paces up and down.

To relieve boredom, he suggests, "Let’s see who can write the best ghost story?" He puts another log on the fire, and sparks fly.

Wolves howl in the forests surrounding the villa, and the cold, bleak surroundings outside add to the atmosphere. Mary, sitting on a cozy chair by the fire said, "I am inspired by telling ghost tales, and talking about electricity that was recently discovered."

The group discusses Dr. Aldini who is experimenting with electricity "to animate the dead." At the Royal College of Surgeons, he demonstrates applying electricity to a dead body, the muscles react, but doesn’t revive the person. Another doctor working with Dr. Aldini, reportedly, went home, and died of fright.

Mary has a dream that started her writing, including "harnessing electricity to bring a person back to life." Two hundred years later, defibrillators save many lives, if used within four minutes after a heart attack.

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The story set in the Swiss Alps tells about how Victor Frankenstein makes a creature to "keep him company," but upon seeing it, he was appalled by what he done. He chases it across the glaciers in the Alps. The book begins when he is found on the ice by a ship bound for the North Pole; he is in search of the creature, and after boarding the ship, becomes ill. The story was published anonymously, and the critics didn’t approve it, but was popular with the public. Today, it is a classic…

Lord Byron starts a story about vampires that is taken by his physician who finishes it and publishes the book. Mary Shelley was the first to write Science fiction/ Gothic books that influenced future writers.

(Gothic novels are usually set in medieval times with mysterious disappearances; they evoke terror in their readers, and bring out the dark side of human nature, plus isolation.)

Lord Byron wrote the poem, Darkness, "at Geneva, when there was a celebrated dark day, on which the fowls went to roost at noon, and the candles were lighted as at midnight." Unknown at that time, the sun was still blocked by the ashes and debris of a volcano erupting.

An excerpt from the poem:

"All earth was but one thought and that was death
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails--men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one…"

The poem is written in the Romantic Period, and at first, considered, as a "last man" telling the apocalyptic story of the final days on earth. Later, readers considered it for the historical aspects.

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The eruption of Tambora in the chain of Indonesian volcanoes in 1815 resulted in a long cold, volcanic winter, the climax of the cooling period, and the Little Ice Age. Ash clouds and sulfur aerosols spewed by the volcano were widespread, chilled the climate of the Northern Hemisphere by blocking sunlight with gases and particles.

The year without summer was blamed on many things or people, including witches and even, Benjamin Franklin experimenting with lightning rods.

In Italy, a scientist said, "I predict the sun will go out on July 18." The prediction caused riots, suicides, and religious activity throughout Europe.

A girl told her aunt, "It is the last day on earth," and her aunt went into a coma.

In cases, where the temperature is cold enough that summer (like in the Northeastern United States), snow started to fall in June and often failed to melt. In Maine, domesticated animals starved, but wild animals were, too. Packs of wolves, so hungry by the unseasonable summer, attack the few remaining farmers’ sheep and chickens that hadn’t succumbed to the cold. It was so bad in 1816 that four Maine townships voted bounties on wolves up to $40.00.

The bad weather isn't confined to North America where Thomas Jefferson sat at his desk and recorded the unusually cold weather. He retires from the presidency and is farming at Monticello, and sustained crop failures that sent him further into debt.

In the US, the following year, corn is at a premium and went from $1 to $3 a bushel to plant new crops. Crop failures and shortages of hay cause farmers to sell their cows and pigs, and the surplus drove the price of meat down. The cycle continues...

Temperatures remain cooler for several years afterwards, and the migration from Maine and surrounding areas to Ohio and westward to seek a better life resembles the Dust Bowl exodus of later years.

     ***

Tambora erupted when there is not any media coverage. Communication systems consist of writing a letter that would arrive in London or New York, six weeks later at the best.

1816 became known as the Year without a Summer or Poverty Year because of the effect on North American and European weather. Agriculture crops failed and livestock died in much of the Northern Hemisphere, resulting in the worst famine of the 19^th century. The eruption of Mount Tambour killed thousands, plunged much of the world into a frightful chill and offers lessons for today.

It was the most destructive explosion on earth of the prior 10,000 years.

　

                         

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 Epilogue:

A German ship was sailing through, what is now known, as the Pacific Ring of Fire, active volcanoes stretching across the Pacific. Sailors on-board shouted, in their language, "Look at that ash and smoke," rising seven miles away, above the island of Krakatoa, another Indonesian volcano that had been inactive until the prior May.

 

Clouds of ash fall throughout the area, so dense, sailors shovel the layers of ash off the deck, and the Captain orders passengers down below to alleviate the ship being top-heavy.

Starting on August 26, 1883, in two days, the volcano erupts and explodes; the loudest sound ever heard, up to 3,000 miles away, propelling large quantities of debris and molten lava into the skies surrounding the island, blew the island apart, and level most of it below sea level.

Tsunamis, some as high in places as 100 miles engulfs the surrounding islands and throws ships in the air; the tremendous force passes over 126 coastal villages, gaining momentum, and travels west to the Arabian Peninsula.

                                    

Most of the 36,000 deaths, some sources say up to 120,000 were due to the tsunamis. Krakatoa replaces Tambora as the biggest eruption, and changes the global climate, with it being erratic for the next five years. Sunsets were painted with their vibrant colors.

On December 29, 1927, debris starts spouting out of the ocean surface above the collapsed caldera of Krakatoa, eventually, accumulating into a new volcano " Recent eruptions took place in 2009 to 2012.

Son of Krakatoa is born….

Reviews

[SyberRose]

Wow very interesting indeed...I lived in Hawaii and visiting one of the volcanos there and the black sand beach in Hilo...Nicely done Diane...another one for publication.
Nice to see you here ..SyberRose

[Diane Lockard]

Thank you for your input; a member of one of my on-line writing groups recommended the Cafe. It is a very valuable resource! Diane