ii. ¥. OTATE 
SORLEGE ay eeainiaanistca N: FORESTS, RESERVOIRS, AND STREAM FLOW 
Mr. Leighton. entirely overlooked by the author. The blanket of snow in the open, 
not heaped into drifts, melts first, and the water naturally seeks to 
percolate into the ground. Bare soil will not absorb this water to the 
maximum extent. In many cases, in northern latitudes, the surface 
is frozen before the snow falls upon it, and it thereby becomes practi- 
eally impervious. The first rush of melted water goes directly into 
the streams and, as it is a quick melting, as Colonel Chittenden con- 
tends with so much truth, it follows that there must be a gorging of 
the rivers. Now, of course, these freshets would be considerably less 
if the greater part of the snow were concentrated into drifts, as 
claimed by the author; but, inasmuch as over the greater part of our 
snow-covered country this is not the case, the saving element does not 
apply. Consider now a drainage area, one half bare and the other half 
forested, and apply these principles to it. The snow covering the 
ground in the open, exclusive of drift, melts rapidly and rushes into 
the watercourses, filling them to a certain height. With this in mind, 
assume that the forest has been removed, and that the whole area 
is bare; does it not follow that, where formerly the 50% bare country 
contributed its melted snows to the river channels and filled them to 
a certain height, 100% of the same area would fill them to a greater 
height, or, in fact, would practically double the discharge? Under 
the forest condition, there is a division of floods. One-half the area 
would discharge its flood-waters, and then subsequently the other half, 
which is quite different from the condition in which the whole area 
discharges practically simultaneously. 
In the foregoing assumptions liberties have been taken with facts 
concerning forests. It has been assumed that, while the melting is 
going on in the open, none is taking place in the forest. This is not 
true. By diathermanous effect, the sun’s rays, which, according to 
Colonel Chittenden, melt the snows in the open, begin to melt the 
snow in the forest quite as early, the difference being that the forest 
melting is much slower. And what takes place there? The layer in 
the forest begins to melt at the bottom. Beneath it is not a compact 
and frequently frozen layer of ground, but a litter of mulch, and 
beneath that an open, porous soil, protected from the early winter cold 
which freezes the ground in the open. The forest litter conducts this 
melted snow into ground which is eager to receive it; but Colonel 
Chittenden cites the fact that later warm rains will hasten this 
melting. This is true, but why confine this effect to the later warm 
rains? Early warm rains are not uncommon. When they fall over 
the snow on the open land, would not the effects be even greater than 
in the forest? The author then contends that the snow in the open 
is melted by the rays ‘of the sun before the air has become warm. 
However true this may be in high altitudes which he cites as examples, 
one must know that it is not true in the lower altitudes. The 
