DISCUSSION : FORESTS, RESERVOIRS, AND STREAM FLOW 425 
These are the temperatures recorded at an elevation of 6500 ft.; mr. Pickett. 
at the altitude of the timber belt, they must have been much lower. 
with the gradual settling and compacting of the snow during the 
winter these temperatures must have been stored up, to a considerable 
extent, under the protection of the forests. 
In the open areas, however, the snows, after successive layers have 
been deposited by winter storms, are exposed more or less to the 
direct rays of the sun (for in the winter clear skies are the rule in the 
timber belt), and the temperature of each layer of snow must. have 
been higher than when first deposited. From these causes alone the 
snow in the open areas would melt sooner. 
The foregoing gives the writer’s views and the reasons for the 
much more rapid snow-melting in the open areas of the high moun- 
tain plateaus, the re-clothing of which with forests is considered so 
important for irrigation as well as for the prevention of floods in the 
Mississippi. 
These views have been impressed upon the writer by a residence 
of 15 or 20 years in the valley of the Grey Bull, during which cattle 
interests compelled him to study climatic conditions. Previous to 
1883 seven or eight months of each year (for seven years) were spent 
on the head-waters of the rivers radiating from the Yellowstone 
National Park. During these explorations the writer obtained an 
intimate knowledge of the topography of about 100 miles in length of 
the Continental Divide and of the extensive groups of mountains on 
each side. Within four miles to the south of his ranch there was an 
elevation of more than 8 000 ft. on the northern border of an extensive 
mountain plateau containing one peak of 13300 ft. elevation, and 
others of 10000 and 11000 ft. elevation. To the north, within 10 
miles, there was a similar plateau of less extent, each being a good 
summer range for cattle. The writer and a neighbor secured, and, 
for years utilized, the mountain plateaus to the south as a cattle 
range. The importance of placing herds of cattle on this range at 
as early a date as possible, in order to reserve the “fenced-in” pas- 
tures for winter range, necessitated many trips to the top of the 
mountain to determine how much of the plateau was free from snow 
and had sufficient new grass to sustain stock. In these trips the 
marked difference as to snow-melting in the pine forests and in the 
open areas was forced on the writer’s attention. 
In several seasons there was sufficient grass in the open areas to 
permit moving the cattle to the mountain as early as June 10th; 
sometimes, in backward seasons, this was not done until toward 
July ist. 
In carefully reading Colonel Chittenden’s views as to snow-melt- 
ing, the points wherein he differs from the writer may admit of ex- 
planation. While conceding that snow melts faster in open areas, the 
author claims that when the snow in forests commences melting it 
