THE RAIN BELT EXTENSION. 



While this subject is somewhat foreign to the scope of this work, the 

 author ventures to record his belief that those who maintain the position 

 that the " rain belt " is gradually extending Westward, are making out a 

 pretty good case. Among advocates of this doctrine are many of the 

 thinking, practical men of the West. In Kansas and Nebraska, such 

 men as Professors Snow, Aughey and Wilber, and Ex-Governor Furnas, 

 and a score or more of others in contiguous States, are showing by proof 

 that seems well nigh conclusive, a marked increase, both in atmospheric 

 humidity and precipitation, within the past thirty years. 



The thirty-eight years' record of the military post at Fort Leaven- 

 worth (covering nineteen years preceding and the same period following 

 the occupation of that State Kansas by white settlers,) shows an 

 increase from 30.96 inches, the average of the first period, to 36.21 inches, 

 the average of second, making an average increase of 5.21 inches per 

 annum. 



The thirty years' records of Fort Keiley; of the State Agricultural 

 College of twenty -four years; and the seventeen years' records of the 

 State University at Lawrence all in the same State show an increase, 

 respectively, of 3.05, 5.61 and 3.06 inches per annum. " Expressed in per 

 cent." says Professor Snow, " these four stations show an increase in the 

 last half of the period compared, as follows : Fort Leavenworth, nearly 

 twenty-five per cent.; Fort Keiley, thirteen per cent.; Manhattan, twenty 

 per cent.; and Lawrence over nine per cent. 



These tests cover periods of time sufficiently long to justify logical 

 conclusions, and can hardly be attributed to mere "accidental variations." 

 They are entitled to weight. Says Mr. Hinton : " When settlement 

 began on the line mentioned by Professor Snow, and West thereof, the 

 annual precipitation did not exceed fourteen inches, and," he adds, 

 " Western Nebraska to the North of Kansas, equally s.'iows, and perhaps 

 even in a more marked way, the peculiar Western movement of the rain- 

 fall, to which attention has been [called, as characteristic of the plains 

 division." 



