GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 455 



accident. At Cheyenne Wells, 4,179 feet above sea level, beans matured 

 along the road bed ; and at First View, 4,479 feet, oats grew to the 

 average height and matured its seed. Winter wheat, rye, and barley, 

 now on trial as far west as Pond Creek, near one hundred and second 

 meridian, are expected to yield well, though late sown on raw sod. 



The vegetation of the Plains, along wagon-tracks and railroad em- 

 bankments, shows a capability of production scarcely suggested by the 

 surface where undisturbed. Wherever the earth is broken up, the wild 

 sunflower (Heliantlius) and others of the taller- growing plants, though 

 previously unknown in the vicinity, at once spring up, almost as if 

 spontaneous generation had taken place. 



CHANGE OP CLIMATE. 



In September last I wrote to Professor Joseph Henry as follows : 



I have been on the Plains all the time since early in May till this date, (22d Sep- 

 tember.) There has been much dry weather, but I have not seen one cloudless day — 

 no day on -which the sun would rise clear and roll along a canopy of brass to the west. 

 There has always been humidity enough to form clouds at the proper height ; and on 

 many days they would be seen defining, by their flat bottoms, the exact liue where 

 condensation became sufficient to render the vapor visible, * * * I conclude from 

 all this that abundant moisture has floated over the Plains to have given us a great 

 deal more rain than would be desirable, if it had been jjrecipitated. 



Sometimes a storm would be seen to gather near the horizon, and we could see the 

 rain pending from the clouds like a fringe, hanging apparently in mid-air, unable to 

 reach the expectant earth. The rain stage of condensation had been reached above, 

 but the descending shower was revaporized, apparently, and thus arrested. * * * 



These hot winds are not, so far as I have observed, apt to be constant in one place 

 for any considerable length of time ; ' they strike your face suddenly, and perhaps in a 

 minute are gone. They seem to run along in streaks or ovenfulls, with the winds of 

 ordinary (but rather high) teniperafure. They do not begin, I believe, till in July, as 

 a general rule, and are over by September 1, or perhaps by August 15. Their origin I 

 take to be, of course, in heated regions south or southwest of us ; but their peculiar 

 occurrence, so capricious and often so brief, I cannot exjjlain to myself satisfactorily. 



I have no rain-gauge record at hand for this and past seasons ; but I may remark that 

 this season, since about the 15th of July, in these distant Plains, has given us rain 

 enough to make beautifully verdant the spots in the prairie burnt off during the 

 "heated" term in Jiily. From Kit Carson eastward the rains have been, I think, ex- 

 ceptionally abundant. All through the summer we have had dew occasionally, and it 

 has been remarked that buffalo-meat has been more difficult of preservation than 

 heretofore ; facts indicative of humidity in the atmosphere, even where but little rain- 

 fall was witnessed. Turnips sown in August would have made a crop in this vicinity, 

 422 miles west of the State line of Missouri. ********* 



Facts such as these seem to sustain the popular persuasion in Kansas, that a climaiio 

 change is taking place, promoted by the spread of settlements westwardly, breaking up 

 portions of the prairie soil, covering the earth with plants that shade the ground more 

 than the short grasses ; thus checking or modifying the reflection of heat from the 

 earth's surface, &c. The fact is also noted, that even where the prairie soil is not dis- 

 turbed, the short buffalo-grass disappears as the "frontier" extends westward, and its 

 place is taken by grasses and other herbage of taller growth. That this change of the 

 clothing of the Plains-, if sufficiently extensive, might have a modifying influence on 

 the climate, I do not doubt ; but whether the change has been already spread over a 

 large enough area, and whether our apparently or really wetter seasons may not be 

 part of a cycle, are unsettled questions. * 



The civil engineers of this railway believe that the rains and humidity of the Plains 

 have increased during the extension of railroads and telegraphs across them. If this 

 is the case, it may be that the mysterious electrical influence in which they seem to 

 have faith, but do not profess to explain, has exercised a beneficial influence. What 

 effect, if any, the digging and grading, the iron rails, the tension of steam in locomo- 

 tives, the friction of metallic surfaces, the poles and wires, the aotion of batteries, &c, 

 could possibly or probably have on the electrical conditions, as connected with the 

 phenomena of precipitation, I do not of course undertake to say. It may be that wet 

 seasons have merely happened to coincide with railroads and telegraphs. It is to be 

 observed that the poles of the telegraph are quite frequently destroyed by lightning: 

 and it is probable that the lightning thus strikes in many places where before the erec- 

 tion of the telegraph it was not apt to strike, and perhaps would not reach the earth 

 at all. 



