Snow: A Curse and a Blessing 



The same blanket of snow in high mountains that sends destruc- 

 tive avalanches down into the valleys will serve to feed irri- 

 gation streams in the spring and make agriculture possible 



The hc_ . . — ■- _:iowfall in the whole country, as far as known, occurs in the high Sierra 

 Nevada, of Cahfomia, where the houses are often buried up to their eaves. This 

 snow, melting, furnishes most of the water for irrigation in the California lowlands 



IF snow were only a thing for children to 

 romp in and poets to prate about, the 

 United States Government would prob- 

 ably not be minded to publish throughout 

 each winter a weekly snow bulletin, com- 

 prising telegraphic reports from all parts of 

 the countr\', nor would it send out its 

 experts to probe and map the mountain 

 snowfields for the purpose of determin- 

 ing' the probable water-supply from this 

 source. 



A good snowfall chart of the United 

 States will show you that, in a normal 

 winter, the total amount of snow falling in 

 various parts of thecountn,^ ranges from nil 

 in southern Florida and parts of California 

 to more than one hundred inches in 

 northern Maine and on the southern shores 

 of Lake Superior, and to three hundred or 

 four hundred inches in portions of the 

 Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. 



The occasional heavy fall of snow pre- 

 sents a problem to the street-cleaning 

 authorities in our great cities that is not yet 

 fully solved. Only a few years ago the 

 uniform method of dealing with this prob- 



lem was to wait until the storm was over 

 and business effectually tied up; then press 

 into service as many men and wagons as 

 possible, and gradually dig the city out. 



The tendency now is to begin work as 

 soon as the snow has covered the pavements 

 if the indications point to a continuance 

 of the storm. A most important advance 

 consists in a recognition of the extent to 

 which the sewers can be utilized in snow 

 removal. While some authorities advocate 

 flushing the snow into sewers with a hose, 

 the method which has recently proved suc- 

 cessful in New York City is to collect it in 

 wagons and dump it into the manholes, 

 under proper supervision to prevent an 

 unnecessary amount of solid matter from 

 being dumped along with it. Two cubic 

 yards a minute can be shoveled into a 

 twenty-four-inch manhole, and, under ordi- 

 nary conditions, it is found that the entire 

 amount is melted within three hundred feet 

 of the manhole by the relatively warm 

 water in the sewer. The cost is a small 

 fraction of that entailed by the old method 

 of hauling to riverside dumps. 



225 



