Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1892-02-11
The Next Storm Wave Will be
Here About the 18th.
WEATHER FOR EIGHT DAYS.
Drouths. Their Causes and the Remedies
Notwithstanding About Rains
In Texas and Their Distribution
The Work of Trees.
Special to the Gazette.
CCop yrighted 1872 BY W. T. FOSTER


mountains by the close of the 18th, the
great central valleys from 18th to 18th, and
the Eastern states about the 18th.
This storm viii be above an average in
force till about the 18th or 10Th, at which
time is will be in the states Of Pennsylvania
and New York, and its force will then
greatly increase and it will continue to be
a severe winter storm through the Eastern
states and Southeastern Canada on the 10th
and 18th.
About the 18th and 10th the cold wave,
then in the Missouri and Mississippi val
leys, viii increase in force and intensity,
causing gales and severe cold for that sea-
son Of the year. The cold wave Will prob
ably reach far into the Southern states.
Weather changes will probably occur at
and within 100 miles of Fort Worth within
twenty-four hours before or after sunset of
the dates given below:
February 11-Cooi and clear
February I2-Moderating.
February 13-Warmer. wind south.
February 1EStorm wave due.
DRoUTHS-THEIH CAUSES AND REMEDIES.
Prior to 1870 rainfall was very light in
Texas, west and southwest OF the Colorado
river, and in the Panhandle country of that
state. Since 1870 the average rainfall
there has largely increased. According to
the theory promulgated by the state uni
versity of Kansas, it is cultivation that has
increased the rainfall. Just as well claim
that cultivation in the great ASiatic desert
of Cobb will restore it to rainfall and fer
tility, when it is as an indisputable fact that
the ancient Aryan tribes cultivated those
rich lands to their death, bringing per-
petual drouth to a country as large and
fertile as now are the great central valleys
of the United States. The Cobb desert is
the heritage OF long continued cultivation
and the destruction of the forests. and no
professor in the Kansas university will
risk his reputation denying it.
To every old settler in Texas it is well
known fact that, because the prairie fires
have been kept out OF Western Texas since
1866, the number and growth of trees have
largely increased, and especially is this the
case with the brush or small timber lands.
An aerial river of water is almost con-
stantly streaming northwestward over the
state of Texas. That river rises from the
Gulf of Mexico through the influence Of the
perpetual high barometer that covers the
Atlantic north of 20 degrees north latitude.
By this 1 mean to say that the principal
part of the moisture that waters all of the
great Central valleys, including the great
Northern lakes, comes from the Gulf OF
Mexico and moves northwestward in tran
sparent streams of moisture laden atmos-
phere.
This great aerial river flows onward over
Oklahoma, Western Kansas and Nebraska,
Eastern New Mexico, Colorado and
Wyoming in the direction of the Dakotas
and Montana.
But why does it precipitate many times
more water ia Eastern than in Western
Texas2 Because the trees protect the
earth from the suns rays and prevent it
from being excessively heated.
Wherever the earth becomes excessively
heated by the suns rays, there the rainfall
will be light That great belt of country,
800 miles wide and 1000 miles in length,
lying east of the Rocky mountains, is a hot
bed, especially in the summer months, and
the hot air constantly rising from that great
arid district drives the aerial river high
into the atmosphere, where it encounters
the returning current and is carried back
to the guilt of Mexico without having ac-
complished the work of watering the great
Western plains.
This condition of the weather. covering
about three hundred thousand square miles
of arid country, affects the climate of all
that vast country lying between the Rockies
and the Alleghanies, and including West
Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York.
The moisture brought northward from
the gulf is precipitated, in rain or snow,
over all the vast country described above by
the periodical low barometers that cross
the continent from west to east.
That moisture must come from the Gulf
of Mexico by way of the aerial river I have
described, and as fully one half Of the
water carried by this river is turned back
and deposited in the gulf by the influence
of the hot winds of the arid plains, it be-
comes matter of great importance that
these rising currents of hot air be pre-
vented.
How can they be prevented? The Kansas
university, through its professors, says
that cultivation will accomplish it, when it
is very plain to any observant mind that
cultivation viii aggravate the disease and
make the hot winds still hotter.
To remedy this evil, trees must be grown
in vast numbers, and this result cannot be
obtained in many places without irrigation.
The drouth years will return because they
are governed by planetary influences, and
these drouth years will kill the trees where
they are planted on the uplands and not
watered by irrigation.
The people who live within the drainage
of the upper Mississippi and the great lakes
have their whole attention turned toward
their only escape from perpetual drouth
lies in saving their Northern pinerieS from
destruction. The destruction of these
pineries will certainly very greatly in
crease the drouth, but it should not be for
gotten that serious drouthS occurred in the
upper Mississippi valley states while the
Northern pineries were in their most -four
tons in the North that could have been the
cause of these drouths, and the only cause
that can reasonably be ascribed is that the
moisture that must necessarily come from
the Gulf of Mexico was cut nn by the hot
winds of the Western plains.
It is not reasonable to suppose that these
plains have long been sterile and rainless.
On the other hand, there are many evil
dences going to prove that heavy timber
once covered that whole country, that it
was inhabited by civilized race and was
cultivated. l have no doubt that cultiva-
ton and destruction Of the timber brought
5urest and quickest way to bring it back to
its ancient fertility is to supply it with
trees and encourage the growth of grasses
suitable for arid countries.
Wherever there Is a grove of trees. there
will be found an atmosphere cooler than
that everything the bare ground, and
this cool atmosphere viii cause
D downpour from above, thus
mixing the cool and the hot air, bringing
the gulf current nearer the earth and in
suring its continued cou5re toward the
northwest.
The recent experiments in making rain
By combustion proves that the upper cur
rents of air in those arid districts are
heavily laden with moisture, and it is not
lifhcult to understand that cooling the
earth by irrigation and trees will bring
hose moist currents down 10 the earth.
Il win not be denied that near the earth
.hese currents move northWestward. while
1t greater altitude they move in the op-
oosite direction. In the high barometer
)yer the gulf, the atmosphere comes down
% the water, and after absorbing moisture,
begins its movement to the north or north |
r.. hon r7r4.-