87 
seen that the amount of loss by evaporation was but small. 
This evidently depends upon the snow remaining at a lower 
temperature than the air. 
This is a most important questi >n, as one of the difficult 
problems with regard to these high climates, as health 
resorts, has always been what is to be done during the snow 
melting, and those patients and doctors who are not fully 
acquainted with the climate have not unnaturally rushed off 
with the idea that the melting of two or three feet of snow 
causes the air to be always laden with moisture. These 
experiments, as we expected, show however that the amount 
of moisture which passes into the air direct from the snow 
is but small, and that the bugbear of the snow-melting is 
much exaggerated. The meteorological figures taken for a 
number of years in several high stations show the months 
of March and April are among the driest of the year. 
The experience of medical men and others who have li^ed 
for many years in these climates seems to be universal that 
the unpleasant and dangerous time is not, per se, when 
the snow is really melting, but as soon as the ground has 
become bare of snow, when people often experience feelings 
of cold and chilliness to which they have been quite unac- 
customed during the cold weather of the winter, and there- 
fore many who live in these places do not try to rush away 
at the first sign of snow melting, but rather towards the last. 
Some of the days with the greatest snow melting were 
this year among the pleasantest of the winter, and from the 
1st April to the 6th inclusive the average relative humidity 
or percentage of possible moisture was at 1 p.m. 55 per cent 
(calculated by Apjohn’s formula), although the snow was 
rapidly melting all day, and two of these days were almost 
absolutely cloudless. 
Although showing that there is not necessarily much 
dampness of the air connected with the snow melting I do not 
