Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1884-02-29
Is Our water supply Failing,

Concerning this important question, the
Scientific American says
1t ia quite manifest that the streams, ponds
and swamps of all this part of the country, in
GLIDING certainly New England and the Mid
die States, are most remarkably destitute Of
ter. And this deficiency has been steadily
becoming more strongly marked and more
troublesome for some yenrs past. The com
plants from the large manufacturing towns
whose dependence is on water power have
been great, and reasonably 80, and manufac-
turers have been seriously discussing the ques
ton whether their trust must not be placed Oh
steam instead of water.
The records correspond with this general
impression. Taking New Haven, Conn, as
fair example, the rainfall there for the past
ten years has averaged AZ. 9 inches, while for
the last four years 1t has been but 1874, and
for the last two it has been only SIG. The
average from 1873 to 1879 inclusive was &c Q,
and from 1904 to 1867 44.43.
1t becomes for Us certainly q very serious
question whether this is merely q phenome-
non, an aborrant affair which will be tempo
rary and transient, or whether we are to &C.
cept the belief that a change is in progress
which involves a failure of precipitation, with
all the evils and desolation which it must
bring And if so, have we at command any
means Of arresting the difficulty even partial
ly?
We hear much said about the injury caus-
cd by clearing the country Of its forest growth
and the death and desolation which must fol
low from it. But, while it is manifest and
certain that land lying open to the sun must
be subject to more evaporation than that
which is denssly shaded, yet the laws OF veg
etRble growth do not permit any such fearful
results as have been suspected. nor does ex-
perlence show that such results have occurred
1t is constantly stated that springs have dried
away, and streams much diminished in size,
as our lands have been stripped of their trees
In n small way and in limited areas this may
be and doubtless is true, but not to any great
extent. That our rivers are pouring into the
sea less water than they discharged two hun
bred years ago, we have no reason to believe.
We cannot regard our present condition
rs anything more than temporary, for several
reasons. In the first place, it is merely local;
for, while we have been suffering from want
of water here, it has been necessary to 90 but
a moderate distance to find precisely the op-
poslte state q things. No further than mere
y beyond the AlleghGuies their complaint has
been of excessive rains and destructive floods
And still again, we are but experiencing that
which has repeatedly occurred since the found
ing of the colonies-a cycle of drought which
after few years will have passed away AC-
cording to the best information which we can
obtain, there is no good reason for believing
that our average rainfall taking a properly
extended series of years, is any less now than
it was in the times OF our earliest history
And it is certainly not possible to refer the
scanty rainfall of the last two or three years
to any effect of forest clearing, for no such
thing has taken place The great tree destruc-
ton of the New England ard Middle States
was done and its effects experienced long ago.
We must therefore look to some other cause
for our present state Of drought and it may
be to a great variety of causes.