The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-09-05
Another Extraordinary Rainfall i'm
Utah-The Change I'm That Climate.

Another Extraordinary Rainfall I'm
Utah-The Change In That Climate.
A brief despatch from Salt Lake City in
forms us that on Tuesday last there was q
heavy storm in that valley; that it extended
generally over the Territory; that the light
ming was very severe and several persons were
injured by it, and that the fall Of rain and hail
was unparalleled in that region. This is q
remarkable phenomenon. particularly in con-
nection with the pleasant surprises of liberal
rains which the people of Utah and the
neighboring State and Territories have ex-
perienced every month this year. Those peo-
pie say that great change for good is coming
over their climate, that it has been in progress
for the last ten or fifteen years. and very re-
markably from year to year since the con-
struction of the Pacific Railroad. They tell
us that Great Salt Lake is now higher than it
was ever known to be at this season hereto
fore; that since Fremont's discovery and ex-
plorations of the lake in 1874 As it has never
been so low as then, at the end Of the dry
season, as he reports it, and that from Pc
Rod soon after the first settlement in the val
ley by the Mormons the rainfall therein has
been annually increasing.
In his ''City of the Saints 1892, by that
famous traveller from Arabia and the lake
regions of Central Africa, R. F. Burton, in
speaking of the climate of Utah, he says:-
Between April and October showers are rare
there are, however, exceptions, heavy down.
falls, with thunder, lightning and hail
Clouds without water is q proverbial ex.
preston /; q dark heavy pail which, in wood
land countries, would burst with its weight,
here sails over the arid, sun-parched surface,
and discharges its watery stores in tho
canyons and upon the mountains. During
the first few years after the arrival of the
Saints there was little rain either in spring or
autumn in 1860 it extended to the middle of
June. The change may be attributed to Guilt
walton and plantation thus also may be ex-
planned the North American Indians saying
that the pale face brings with him his rain.
The same has been observed in Kansas and
New Mexico, and is equally remarked by the
natives in the Eastern hemisphere of Cairo,
the Alden Coal Hole, and Kurrachee'
But while the planting and cultivation Of
trees, even in small groves, in desert regions,
have brought down the rain. where rain was
unknown before the people of Utah and the
adjoining Territories attribute the marked in
crease of their annual average rainfall within
the last few years to those lines of iron of the
main Pacific and it's branch railroads, acting
as electrical conductors. If this is true, we
may reasonably count upon such an increased
value of all our arid lands from the great
plains to the Pacific, and from the British
possessions to our Mexican frontier, from the
building of our Northern and Southern Pacific
railways, as will thousand times over redeem
all the costs involved in the construction Of
these roads. In any event. in region whero
for fifteen years and more steadily increas-
ing annual rainfall has been so generally no.
ticed as in Utah, there is evidently change ae
work in the climate, from which, within even
q generation or two, we may count upon such
a transformation Of those arid regions as will
make their former sterility and desolaton ap-
pear incredible to the observing traveller.