The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-05-22
WEEK OF HOT WEATHER
Would Make the Rivers Raging
Torrents.
SNOW IN THE MOUNTAINS
The Missouri River Is Reaching It's
High Stage = threatening in the
Belt Canyon Railroads Have
Had Experience.

Great Falls, May 21.-The week of
heavy rains, now occurring, would, if
followed by a week of hot weather, be
likely to cause considerable damage by
flood. In the mountains the moisture
has, of course, more largely taken the
form Of snow than Of rain, and there is
freezing there every night, which helps
to hold the water back or let it down
by degrees to the water courses. But a
week Of hot weather which would pre-
vent this night freezing would swell the
streams to dangerous extent.
The damage done up to the present
time has been caused by the rapid
melting Of heavy bodies of snow in the
foothills and the reservoir of moisture
in the mountains was practically un-
affected Milk river. which went on the
rampage last MONTH draws much OF Its
water from small streams which only
drain the prairfes and the foothills. 1t
also draws from the mountains, but not
in a degree which will cause a repeti-
ton of the food that washed out miles
of the Great Northern track.
The Missouri river Is now at high
stage, though not the maximum, but
draining as 1t does large part of the
main range, a hot spell would tend to
raise it to the tops of it's banks and
cause many washouts. That is what the
Great Northern is endeavoring to avoid
at present. The company, since its bad
experience of 1893, has not only re-
paired it's road bed and put in solid
foundation of broken rock, but this
spring it is building number OF strong
wing dams at Craig and other danger
GUS points in the Prickly Pear canyon
to turn the waters of the Missouri
away from it's embankments, and hopes
for success.
Another threatening place is through
the canyon of the Belt, on the branch
of the Montana Central division. Here
the walls of the deffle are but short
distance apart and very high. The con-
fined stream draws it's water from the
Little Belts, which are this spring Load
ed with from 10 to 20 feet of snow and
which are capable of converting this
snow into water with a lightning
speed Here, too, the railway has had
a bitter experience in the past and has
materially profited by it. In all of the
difficult places the former earth road
bed has been replaced with rock, and
in some places the line has been carried
across the creek to avoid bad spots.
The Sun river although at times it
has flooded the village of Sun River,
mas never CauSeQ ANY great loss, dlid
like the Missouri draws from a noun
tain district, draining over 20 miles of
the main range of the Rockies. Like the
Missouri too. it is comfortably high
just now and will probably reach its
maximum in June. The Teton and the
Marias, to the north of this city, are
likely to fall into the class of dangerous
streams at about the same time. while
in the Judith basin the Judith river is
about the only one which may give
trouble. The extreme backwardness of
the season has operated in two ways
the holding back of the freshets and the
accumulation of an unusual store of
material for those to come. Should the
weather continue cold, which seems al
most impossible, there could not be any
sudden rise in any of the mountain
draining streams. while with sudden
and hot weather the opposite conditions
would prevail.