346 Harshberger on Relation of Ice Storms to Trees. 



meteorologists prefer to call such storms ice storms, locally- 

 near Philadelphia they are denominated sleet storms.^ A 

 brief resume of the effects of the two ice storms above men- 

 tioned upon vegetation is of scientific import. 



The records show that on Sunday, February i6, 1902, 

 snow began falling about two hours before midnight and by 

 daybreak the ground was covered with a deep mantle which 

 continued to increase steadily until Monday afternoon, Feb- 

 ruary 17th, when eleven inches had fallen. Traffic on steam 

 roads and trolley lines was seriously impeded, and pedes- 

 trians found it a laborious task to wend their way against 

 the storm. At one o'clock Friday morning, February 21, 

 1902, sleet began to fall, which changed to rain and slush at 

 nine o'clock. The rain continued during the day and well 

 into the night with mean temperature of the day at 32 

 degrees. 



Very few trees escaped damage from this storm. Trees 

 that had withstood the storms of several centuries were 

 uprooted, or had their larger branches snapped off by the 

 weight of the ice. The large sycamore trees, Platanus occi- 

 dentalis, L., in the yard of the Pennsylvania Hospital on 

 Pine street were seriously damaged. These trees, noted for 

 their large size and graceful branching, had their larger 

 branches broken off as so many pipe-stems and the ground 

 was littered with the fragments of branches that had stood 

 the blasts of storms for over a century. Silver maple trees 

 suffered most. At Haverford, Pa., where the storm reached 

 its height, the avenues of trees along Lancaster Pike and 

 intersecting roads were so badly destroyed that the high- 

 ways were made impassable from the branches that had 

 been torn from these trees. Fairmount Park presented a 

 desolate appearance. On every hand, the ground was strewn 

 with broken branches and splintered tree-trunks. From 



•The Standard Dictionary (Twentieth Century Edition) defines sleet 

 as "a mixture of snow or hail and rain, particularly a drizzling or driv- 

 ing partly frozen rain, or rain that freezes on the trees or ground." 



