Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1902-08-28
CHANGE IN our CLIMATE.

CHANGE IN OUR CLIMATE.
Why Summer and Winter Are warmer
Disappearance of Forests One Cause.
Baltimore American.
Many are prone to inquire at this
time, when the humidity is high,
.tWhy is it that the summers are SO
much hotter and the winters so much
warmer than in former years?'
Asked as to what scientists regarded
as the chief cause for the gradual
climatic changes, DIR, Philip X. Uhler,
president of the Maryland Academy
of Sciences and provost of the Peabody
Institute, said:
There's no doubt that our climate
has changed greatly. When | was q
hoy our winters were much colder
than any we have been having lately.
1t was the usual thing in those days
for the Spring Gardens to be frozen
over in the winter. We had fine
skating there, and once in while
when we had an extra cold snap, we
would have chance for skim over
the ice clear down to Annapolis.
There was nothing unusual in those
days in the sight of a sledge laden
down with wood being drawn across
the ice from Anne Arundel county.
But nobody has seen anything OF that
sort in recent winters. <
Then look at our Summers. We
used to think they were pretty hot.
But 80 degrees seemed pretty high up
in those days.
''There used to be an idea prevalent
among physicists that there was 40,
year cycle of seasons, but that idea
has been dropped. One thing is abso-
lutely certain, and that is that in the
country, where there is n great deal
of vegetation, there is corresponding
distribution of water, and, conse-
quently, cooler atmosphere
Scientists hold various views of
the reasons for the changing climatic
conditions UnquesUionahly, one of
the causes of the increase in tempera-
ture is the disappearance of the
forests. As result of the destruction
of the forests change is made in the
distribution of surface water. 1 don t
mean water that runs over the surface,
but just the opposite--water that is
held there. 1t is only the water that
is caught by the vegetation and by
the soil and that is held there that
does any good in reducing the tempera-
ture. The land around Gwynns Falls,
from the mouth of the falls up, was
at one time densely wooded. 1t is
not so any longer.
Twenty-Five or 80 years ago there
were as many as 100 springs that fed
the little channels that empty in the
falls between the Powhatnn Mills
and the mouth of thu falls. Today you
can find scarcely any springs in that
whole strip, and, consequently, the
little channels carry no permanent
water. After a heavy rainfall they
may carry a little stream, but ordi
narily they are either dry or carry a
very minute thread of water.
"And it is not only the tiny streams
that show the effect of tho cutting
down of our Maryland woods. Years
ago some of our large rivers and
streams were navigabla to greater dis
tances than they are today. You
wouldn't want more striking illus
tration of the destructive effects that
follow in the wake of the denudation
of the forests than was given by the
food of 1868 on the Patapsco River.
Up to that time the Patapsco had been
navigable as far as the Relay. There
was chute at the mouth of the river,
from which the grain and tobacco
brought down were loaded OH the
larger vessels But the flood, with the
load of debris and rocks and soil that
it carried down with it, blocked up
tho channel, and it has not been navi-
gable since. That was the flood
during which people were drowned
from off the roofs of their houses in
Ellicott City.
But to trace it back to the cutting
down of the trees. The hills about ~
or % miles up the river had been
denuded of their trees. The terrific
storms concentrated over these bare
hills and then condensed into one.
The psople in that part of the country
called it a oloudbyrst. There was
nothing on the denuded hills to break
the force of the storms. The water
came down in an immense tidal wave,
filling up the whole channel with the
wreckage it swept along with it.
'sWhen the trees go the earth is
exposed to the direct scorching rays of
the sun. Evaporation goes on much
more rapidly because there is nothing
to stop it. Take another illustration
from the neighborhood of the Relay.
A man bought some property out there
above the Relay. He had the hillsides
cleared and proceeded to do his spring
slanting. That season his hillside
was as bare as the cobblestones in the
street are. The next year he put in
some clover, and ne succeeded finally
in getting down to fine subsoil. He
planted grapes and now has thriving
vineyard. But the heat that beats
down on the hillside is so intense that
frequently many of the leaves die
before the fruit ripens