The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-12-29

sixty-fOur times, or as the sixth power
OF the velocity-a surprising fact that
explains the carrying of enormous
stones in times of floods and freshets,
or even of high water And so the
stream works on, almost as if with
conscious purpose, to make and trans
port soil.
Loading and Unloading.
Indeed, you need scarcely go to the
canyon to observe a process 50 well
known. Streams are the arteries of this
natural commerce. Their cargoes are
taken up and laid down with unvary-
ing certainty according to a simple
law governed by the rate of the flow
As the stream loads and unlOads, as it
picks up and lays down its precious
freight, it seems to do so irregularly
and In a capriciOus fashion; but the
fact is that its activity in this respect
Is continuous, and its regularity is sim
ply perfect, being governed by a beau
t5ful mathematical law that has arrest
ed the attention of many careful think
ers- If the channel is narrowed, the
velocity of its stream is increased, and
its carrying power is multiplied in
geometric ratio. Captain Eads pre-
vented the flooding of the Mississippi
SIMPLY by building jetties-narrowing
the bed in certain places, so that the
stream cut deeper into it's bed instead
OF depositing its freight in the bottom,
filling up the channel, and overflow
ing as it had done before.
stand beside any small stream. The
grains of sand in the bed, as they
move and stop, form ridges like small
waves because any obstruction that
changes the velocity of flowing water
causes the heavier particles 10 he
dropped. On the convex side. the cur
rent is feeble and, there the grains are
laid down; but on the concave side
the stream cuts into the bank. so that
the bed is constantly shifting. The
banks dissolve like sugar near the
mouths of most rivers. and every river
valley shows by its terraces how the
soil has been carried to one lower level
after another.
Snow and Frost at Work.
Here and there were the gravel beds
and stones which it had deposited on
the banks as it overlooked; occasionally
yaWned the chasms which it had cur
INTO the banks and the macadamized
road though these had been protected
by heavy masonry. But everywhere
were the evidences of the snowslide. the
landslide, the rOck-slips, and the rock
rolls, that had covered the road in
places and had filed the swollen river
with the earth, sand, gravel and stones.
which 1t swept so easily and so swiftly
TO the lower levels and on into the val
ley and the lake below. These land
slides and snowslides would have been
fewer in number and far less terrible
in their destructiveness had the canyon
sides been covered, as they once We're,
with the magnificent groves-"God's
first temple" -which the people have
so thoughtlessly and SO ruinously cut
down for firewOod, lumber and railroad
ties. AS we drove along, little balls of
earth started trembling from the noun
tain side and rolled down into the wa
ter or upon the road. Small stones
seemed to be coming in continuous
streams. The frost had just been doing
its principal work. The water from the
thawing snow had descended along the
cliffs and had filed their crevices the
day before when the sun was shining
bright and hot at monday. The night
before it had been very cold. The water
had frozen into ice in a thousand crew
ices on the face of every cliff; and as
it did so, the expansive force of the
freezing water had split off thousands
of chips of almost every size. These fell
at the base or slid into the river This
crumbling of rock is the beginning of
coarse soil making. The river at flood
time carries these fragments bodily for
ward, but at all other times it merely
shifts and rolls the sand and silt that
form the body of the soil. The soil
rolls, floats, or PUSHES onward carried
by the river. Each particle of earth.
each grain of sand, each piece of grav-
ell, and each larger stone, awaiting its
chance, swims or rolls downward, with
every increase in the volume and veloc-
ity of the busy and tireless stream that
works on with it's thousand hands.
arms and levers to supply the valleys
with its ground-up product.
Work of the Sun.
of soil. clay and gravel, the expansive
force due TO heating caused numerous
particles to descend as we passed-a
process that goes on all day long. all
night, and from season to season. AS
the land alternately heats and coois
the unequal expansion and contraction
among the particles, clods, and the
banks, causes them first to shift uneas-
lily among themselves and finally TO
break off in pieces and roll down the
hillside. The amount of this expansive
force is very great, and it's results,
when carefully observed, are often truly
astonishing. Not only is the clay bank
or the gravel bank loosened and disin-
tegrated by the sunshine, but the solid
rock is opened. sometimes with explo-
sive force. by the unequal heating and
cooling of different parts of the rocky
mass at different times in the day.
This is especially true in dry and hot
summers like our own.
Work of the Roots.
At the Hermitage, where the river
had cut far into the land, masses OF