Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1890-05-03

DOES RACE MAKE CLIMATE!
Does the AnEio-Saxon Change tho Gil
mate where He Locates?

Does the Angio-sayon Change tho Gil
mate where He Locates?
Especial Correspondence
New YORK, May Twenty three
years ago visited Fort Riley, Kan,
when the military reports referred to it
as on the western border of the thickly
babitable region, and talked with officers
and traders Of Ellsworth, n little beyond,
as "on the edge of tho Great American
Desert" In the valleys there was soft
grass and a sort of sod Northward and
northeastward-an ] especially recall
Pawnee county, Neb.--the country as
covered by the "hard grass of the
plains" that is, a sort of punched and
seeded grass which formed no sod. Go
ing westward on the Platte found very
little sod beyond Loup Fork. The Won
derful change in all that meridian
know, for have seen il.
have heard moro curious things, for
which cannot personally vouch. Many
witnesses say that for many years the
border between the soft grass of the Mis-
souri, valley and the regular plains grass
Travelled regularly westward at the rate
of two or three miles per year During
all those years and many more all west
ern New Mexico and northern Arizona
were certainly growing dryer, for
found many recently extinct lakes and
abandoned fields in which the Navaioes
had raised good crops of corn thirty
years before. At the same time the val
leys about Beaver, Utah, were gaining
moisture 80 rapidly that broad stretches
remained green nearly all summer and
at Salt Lake City there was at least one
heavy rain each month in the summer of
1874. Now what could have caused this
change except the presence and work of
the Caucasian? can imagine no other
reason which fits all the facts.
In Australia the changes have been
stupendous, Vast tracts on which the
summer heat was almost intolerablo have
become comparatively temperate. The
air is still hot, but there is n softness in
1t which makes it Far more agreeable the
nights are more refreshing, tho breezes
more cooling, and in the vicinity Of cul-
uvated tracts even the desert air is less
prostrating. Old settlers in California
insist know not how truly-thnt thuu-
der Is now often heard in localities where
1t was unknown at the time of the "dig.
gings," and few pioneers testify to per-
sonally noting the fright of Indians there
when they first heard thunder. The old
est reports of explorers speak of the
Cherry creek country as rainless in sum
mor; but l have seen rain storms in Dem
Yer which would be rated us violent
and nrptrnftnlN In, thn .1l,,
A recent writer on Egypt asserts that
ram has fallen oftener since the English
took possession. On the other hand. the
runs OF Roman aqueducts and fount-
tains and evidences of cultivated fields
have been discovered so far down in the
. Sahara as to prove that the limit of cul-
nVation was once far south of the pres
ent limit, and we know in reason that
when Northern Africa had eighty Chris
tian bishoprics it must have held at least
ten times as many people as now. The
aryan or Caucasian race ruled it then.
There are many reasons for believing
that the habits of this race and their
methods OF culture improve the climate.
On the other hand ii is to be noted
that seasons of the old fashioned kind
come at intervals to western Kansas and
Nebraska and to Utah aud Colorado: and
1t Is important TO know whether this is
always to be so, or whether long contin-
ued cultivation will not finally make the
increased rainfall permanent. Nebraska
presents this curious anomaly; consider
ably more than half the grain produced in
the state Is from the section west of what
was only twenty-five years ago marked
as the limit of possible farming without
irrigation. 1t is also question if irri.
gazing all the valleys lying in proper
locations therefor will not make all the
adjacent uplands cultiyable by increas.
ing the rainfall. J,H Br,n,p