5

Bed 12 -- 2 below z --

Saturday Jan 14

Clear & very cold -- Below zero all day - I around as usual -- Evening the thermometer kept dropping -- Bed at 12 it was 10 below, by Gilligs thermometer and mine. Down at the Con Va and other outside localities it was as low as 17 - below zero -- average probably about 13, which is as cold as I ever recorded on the Comstock --

Sunday Jan 15

Same -- About 5 deg colder than yesterday -- According to the thermometer at the [blank/erased?] Sierra Nevada Combination & other mines the real temperature, outside of local town influences, was 20 degrees below zero during the last night -- Coldest I have

The coldest snap 20 below - Water shut off My new Insurance Commission cold sleighride

ever see on the Pacific Coast -- Received my new commission as agent for the Bankers & Merchants Mutual Life Ins Co --gives me 60 per cent instead of 50, since Jan 1 -- Bed at 1 -- 3 above zero -- at 6 PM it was 6 below zero -- Quite a difference in temperature -- Water works frozen up somewhere so it was shut off all day -- I saved up a 5 gallon can of water last night, so have a good supply -- About noon today John Henderson, Chief of Police treated me to a nice sleighride along C & D sts in his 1 horse sleigh -- 4 or 5 degrees below zero -- coldest sleighride I have had on this coast -- Most froze our ears off --

John Eckley 20 above zero The Coldest Snap