The Russellville Democrat., 1880-10-28
How the Winters in the sierras Grow
 Longer.
Virginia City (Nev.) Enterprise.


 Prof. Legate has returned from trip into the Sierras of eight davs' duration. He had with him two assistants and his own vehicle for the transportation of his instruments, and camped out most of the time. The object of the Profes- sor's trip was the study of recent inter- estlng meteorological changes in the ele- evated regions of the Sierras. He was led to believe that during the present season the warm belt had shifted south. Beginning at point just north of Lake Tahoe, the snow has not melted away as in former years. There are now banks of snow from 50 to 100 feet in depth tt points where heretofore at this season no snow has lain. Nearly the whole of this snow will remain where it now lies until the snows of winter again set in. Up toward the head waters of the North Fork of the Yuba River, where no snow is usually seen at this season, it has but little more than begnn to disappear. In that place are to be seen huge banks of snow, under which flow the waters of the stream, forming arches or natural bridges 100 feet in height, and from 200 to 300 feet in width. As nearly the whole of this snow will remain until snow again comes, the accumulation next year will be still greater. and the whole region around the head of that and other rivers high in the mountains will probably lie under the spow the year round.
 It was for the purpose of ascertaining the cause of this remarkable change of climate to the northward that Prof. Le- gate went on his exhibition into the mountains. Through the results obtain ed by observation made at many points with various delicate instruments, but principally by means ofcareful thermome- trical tests, the Professor has established the fact that there has occurred in the range of the Sierra Nevada Mountains this season a grand isothermal change. He finds that the warm current of air which ever since the settlement of Cali fornia by Americans-and probably ages before-has moved upward from the Pacific seaboard to the Sierra Nevada mountains and thence turned and flowed to the northward along the west side of the main ridge of the range, thus giving to all regions in that direction q warm climate, no longer moves in that direc- ton. It now comes up from the side of the ocean and pours eastward directly across the crest of the Sierras near Lake Tahoe
 Prof. Legaie has satisfied himself that this wonderful cha lge, which IS leaving all the northern parts of the Sierras buried in snow, summer and winter, is caused by the denudation of timber which the mountains have suffered through belt beginning at Lake Tahoe and extending some 20 miles southward. Through the great gap thus left by the sweeping away of the forests now flows the warm current of air which formerly moved-with something of the circling motion of water in an eddy-far along the mountains to the northward. Prof. Legate says it must not be supposed that the change has been caused merely on account of the gap or trough left by tle clearing away of the forests. The denu- dation of the ground IS the principal cause. The heat of the sun pouring down upon the broad belt of bare ground now reaching across the moun- tains causes at that point an immense ascending column of heated air which draws in from the west the current which formely moved to the northward and now all crosses the Sierras, passing in an upward and eastward direction.
 Prof Legate is of the opinion that the only thing capable of changing the isothermal line which has been recently accidentally and diastrously established is the creation, at some point we'll north, of another broad belt of denudation, the influence of which will be to draw Tn that direction portion of the warm current of air moving up to and along the western slope of che Sierras, and thus partly restore the equable tenn perature that formerly prevailed. He thinks the railroad which is to run in the direction of Oregon from Reno, and which'is to stike and tap the great pine forests of the Sierras well to the north, will after few years effect the desired change.