256 FORESTS, RESERVOIRS, AND STREAM FLOW 
for a lower altitude, warmer climate and different kind of forest. In 
reply it may be said that, in proportion as the conditions described pre- 
vail, they apply everywhere. In deciduous forests where the foliage 
is absent during seasons of snowfall and melting, the winds have 
greater play in winter and the sunlight in spring, and there is, of 
course, less difference between the forests and the open country; but 
while the difference is less it is not obliterated altogether, and in hilly 
regions, like the Adirondacks and the White Mountains, it exists in 
full force. The writer is very familiar with the region of Western 
New York—having been reared on a farm nearly on the divide between 
the waters of the Ohio and Lake Erie—a beautifully wooded country, 
deciduous growths prevailing, and one of the snowiest regions in the 
United States. While there is less drifting in the open and more in 
the woods than in high mountains, still it is strictly true that the 
open-country drifts outlast the forest snows just as the latter outlast 
the thin snows in the open. 
A striking example of the action of forests on snow-melting may be 
seen in the mountains of the Pacific Coast. Here are the densest forests 
in the world, the deepest beds of humus, and the most perfect reservoir 
effect so long as it is in action. Yet in this very region, particularly 
around Puget Sound, are to be found some of the most torrential 
streams in the country. This fact is largely due to the distribution of 
snowfall caused by the forests. Conditions like the following are con- 
stantly developing. Heavy snow storms sweep over the forest-covered 
mountains. The snow cannot drift, for the dense woods break the 
wind. A great deal of it does not reach the ground at all, but hangs 
on the branches and undergrowth all the way from the highest tree 
tops down. This covering is often so dense as to prevent cruising oper- 
ations altogether, because the cruisers cannot see the timber through 
the impenetrable screen of snow. Of an 18-in. fall, perhaps 12 in. is 
on the trees and the rest spread evenly on the ground. To show what 
now happens, let an illustration be drawn from the opposite process of 
drying clothes. When the housewife has finished her washing and 
wishes to dry the clothes, she does not set them out in a basket, where 
it would take weeks for them to dry, but spreads them upon the ground 
or hangs them on a line, so that the sun and air can reach them on all 
sides. So these forests increase, by a thousand-fold, the exposed area 
of the snow over what it would be if heaped in Nature’s clothes 
