3 3 



THE FORESTER. June, 



out a very appreciable amount of water ago this condition was almost unknown, 



were totally dry or, when recipients of or else was trifling in effect. 



rains and cloud-bursts, emptied the gath- In 1898 hail fell in Jefferson County, 



ered water-fall into Clear Creek in two or east of Gulden, with terrific violence in 



three hours, hurling down and carrying a swath nearly three miles wide and of 



into the parent stream all the rich vege- indefinite length. To the eastward apple, 



table mould of their narrow valleys which plum and pear trees, stripped of all their 



had been stored there, during past ages, leaves, fruit and flowers, raspberry, black- 



from the decomposition of vegetable mat- berry and strawberry beds were annihi- 



ter. So that to day, where twenty-five lated almost completely, while growing 



years ago there stood a vigorous growth wheat, oat and corn fields were beaten 



of trees and under-shrubs, we see the al- down and their yield much lessened from 



luvial soil washed to bedrock, in some the weakness of their aftergrowth. The 



cases twenty feet or more deep, while hail, rain and thunder storm of July 24, 



everywhere the original wagon roads, 1894, will long be remembered in Jeffer- 



opened in the low grounds of the gulches son County for its violence, destruction 



and creeks, have been moved at great and loss of life. The accompanying 



expense to the more rocky mountain heavy rain on the foot-hills hurled down 



slopes, away from the violence of sudden vast accumulations of boulders, gravel 



floods. and soil into the valleys of Beaver, Bear 



Nor is this all. The denudation of and Clear Creeks, and swelled the streams 



tree growth in all our mountains, on the in some places to twenty feet or more in 



summits of the foot-hills, as well as in depth. Boulders weighing two tons or 



the valleys, has furrowed with ravines more were floated down one and one- 



and covered with sand and loose rock half miles into Clear Creek, the flood 



acres of good soil, and on Bear Creek waters leaving beds of shingle and soil 



utterly spoiled meadow and cultivated and gravel mixed where cultivated fields 



land, every rain in June, July and August stood, while on Bear Creek twenty-two 



adding yearly to this calamity. lives were lost in the flood. Hail stood 



Another element of injury seems to act in piles from one to one and one-half feet 



with increasing yearly fury. Bare moun- in depth. The storm came from the 



tain slopes and fields, heated by the tor- northwest. It was a veritable object 



rid rays of the June and July sun, seem lesson. 



to create, by the force of ascending cur- I have gauged the water-flow of Clear 



rents of heatedair, disastrous hail storms, Creek repeatedly since September 20, 



accompanied by violent thunder-storms, i860, and give the following figures, 



which wreak their fury on the crops and showing difference of flow up to Septem- 



iruit-trees and gardens of the prairie ber 15, 1880, at the same location of 



farms near the foot-hills. Forty years gauging : 



Sept. 20, i860, width of stream, 53 ft. ; veloc. per sec, 3. 60; area, 101 

 Sept. 19, 1879, width of stream, 32 ft. ; veloc. per sec, 2.38 ; area, 46.15. 

 Sept. 15, 1880, width of stream, 34 ft. ; veloc. per sec, 2.23 ; area, 38.22. 



Greatest flow gauged at same point Least flow gauged at same point 



June 10, 1872, width of stream, 62.65; March 22, 1880, width of stream, 31 feet ; 



velocity per second, 4.27 ; area, 280.23. velocity, 2.04; area, 25.72. 



E. L. Berthoud. 



