Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 159 



I must now state a last point — the influence of forests in equalizing 

 the layer of snow and giving to it all its beneficial effects. Without 

 the forests a great mass of snow is often a check to all communica- 

 tion, as, for example, at this moment in South Russia, where most 

 of the railways are stopped. The unusually great mass of snow is 

 blown in all directions by the wind unimpeded by trees, as some of 

 these places were always steppes ; in others man was too short- 

 sighted to let the trees stand. The effect of the melting of snow on 

 the rising of rivers will be quite different in a wooded and a bare 

 country. In the first the snow will lie sometimes a month longer 

 than in the last, and accordingly the floods of the rivers will be longer 

 continued but less high and devastating. Every one who has inha- 

 bited the country will be struck by this fact, and its bearing on the 

 climate and the well-being of the population all around. Generally 

 speaking, as I have stated, the effects of a layer of snow are bene- 

 ficent to man. The proportion of the crops is of enormous econo- 

 mical worth. The greater moisture of the air is also good ; and even 

 the cold of spring, caused by the melting of snow, has its good side. 

 The too rapid advance of vegetation in early spring is checked by it, 

 and protracted to a time when the vegetables have less to fear from 

 night frosts. Northern Europe, for example, suffers much less from 

 this curse than the south, where the returns of cold in spring cause 

 great damage every year. Only two serious effects are sometimes 

 felt — the interruption of communication in snow-storms, and the great 

 floods of spring. But both of these drawbacks can be avoided by 

 the foresight of man, as forests arrest the progress of winds and 

 cause a slow melting in spring, so as to store a great quantity of 

 water to supply our rivers. — Silliman's American Journal, July 

 1871. 



Ott ELECTRO-TELEGRAPHY* 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Journal. 



Gentlemen, Telegraph Street, 



July 15, 1871. 

 As M. Schwendler has referred to a statement of mine in his 

 paper in your July Number, may I be allowed to say he is correct in 

 stating that the "shunt" he describes was invented by a telegraph 

 clerk (Mr. Higgins). Its application to overland telegraphs is men- 

 tioned in the handbooks supplied to the staff of the Indian Telegraph 

 Department in 1867, where it is also stated that the proper resist- 

 ance of the ". shunt" is about equal to that of the electromagnet to 

 which it is attached. 



I am, Sir, 



Your obedient Servant, 



R. S. ClJLLEY, 



