ae 
JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS, 107 
SKYWARD NOTES. 
Read before the Astionomical Section of the Hamilton Scientific 
Association, March 15th, 1904. 
BY DR. BEAVIS. 
Residence of a year in Colorado has confirmed me in the con- 
viction formed -years ago, that this State is one of nature’s favorites. 
With his feet on the earth, a man is conscious that his head is in a 
different air from anything he has been accustomed to. By day and 
by night he realizes that he is breathing an element which cannot 
be found even in the region of the great lakes, nor on the ocean 
shore, and certainly not in the Mississippi valley. 
On the line where Kansas and Colorado meet you stand 3000 
feet above the sea ; entering the door of the capitol at Denver your 
footsteps tread one mile above sea level. Colorado, comprising 
104,000 square miles, is half mountain and half plain. Come to 
think of it, the mountainous half must greatly outmeasure the 
plains, as so much of it is set up on edge. 
The Colorado sky seems to mean one thing out on the plains, 
and quite another where it is punctuated by the ascending Rockies. 
The former region is known as the “rain belt,” while in the latter 
(comprising a wide strip of open country) irrigation is resorted to. 
But the ‘term “rain belt” is rather misleading, for when you are 
well acquainted with that particular region you will conclude that it 
is so called because most of the time the people are praying for rain, 
and the rest of the time they are praying for it to stop. If you look 
southward for the approach of rain you will be surprised at its 
absence, but when the clouds are massed in the east you will be 
wise to seek shelter. 
As Colorado, mountain and plain, has the reputation of exag- 
gerated dryness, it is interesting to note the precipitation of 
moisture. At Wray, away out on the plains, there fell 21 inches in 
1899 and 27 inches in 1902, Over at Grand Junction, thirty miles 
from the Utah line, and famous for fruit culture, the precipitation 
was 36 inches in 1899 and 32 inches in 1902. In the northwestern 
