This chapter being devoted to rainfalls, a few introductory
observations may be in order. The essential need on Earth’s surface for
growth of vegetation, and the sustenance of life, depending thereon
in some form, is in universal irrigation, which Nature failed to
furnish by its internal provision of water with its outflow of springs
and lakes, except by artificial use. The rainfall on the Earth is no
more intended for filling of springs, lakes and seas than it is for
supplying us with fuel. It is simply a provision for surface watering
of vegetation, and has no more effect on the existence of living
springs and subterranean outflow of water than the eclipse of the moon.
There never was a rainfall, except, perhaps, in Noah’s time, that wet
the general surface of the country to the depth of three feet, and
rarely one-half of that. It is generally called a good, soaking rain
that moistens the bottom of the potato hills, and to wet what the soil
will hold one to two feet requires a prodigious amount of water. It
is claimed by proprietors of orange groves that a volume of water of
six inches in depth is requisite to thoroughly irrigate the grove. If
the claim that rain has no effect on the supplies of springs and lakes
be true, you will ask why it is that after a long drouth and a heavy
rainfall, the springs resume running, and water returns into wells
that have for a time been dry? The effect on those sources of supply
is simply the same as results from wetting a sponge to take up water
which will not absorb and be taken up in a dry one. You can easily be
convinced of this effect. To show that water will run uphill or away
from the Earth: The surface of the Earth becoming saturated, and in
some places penetrating into the seams and crevices of rock and soil,
at once forms a medium of attraction for the waters below to follow.
Another valid reason is the general condition of the atmosphere from
the time of drouth to a condition of moisture when it becomes really a
mammoth sponge after being dampened. Against the claim that rainfall
has little or no influence in raising or producing springs or lakes, or
living wells, this question naturally arises regarding springs, which
has in a measure been answered. It is, however, a pertinent question,
and a pleasant one to answer fully.
In the summer season, most commonly of any, the air becomes hot
and dry. The surface of the Earth loses the moisture of the air’s
influence, together with the Sun’s heat evaporating the dampness,
becomes generally arid, and fails thereby to be a conductor of the
moisture from below.
As a season of very dry atmosphere occurs for months at times, the
soil becomes correspondingly dry and dusty to quite a depth. From this
cause the springs and water in wells recede and sink away. It is an
easy matter to find people who have witnessed the following seeming
phenomena in times of drouth: After a period of weeks or months of
drouth before any rainfall has occurred at all, the fountains, long
dry, often commence to run, and wells begin to fill with water, and
this without a drop of rain.
Just here comes the pleasant task of answering the question fully: How
can this occur without a soaking rain?
At such times, when the Earth and all nature is thirsting for water,
and every fountain seems to have dried up forever, the day will come
which will bring these evidences.
The aged will complain of their rheumatism; men’s bones will ache;
geese will wash in the dust; the peacock will scream; birds, beasts and
vegetation will feel a humidity in the air and intuitions that rain is
near. As the atmosphere has felt the approach and preparation for rain
some time in advance, so all Nature feels its effects. To illustrate
the burned or dry condition of the air, you may consider this test:
Take a pail of water, and a dry sponge, big as your head, and lay the
sponge on the surface, and it will take a long time for the sponge to
absorb the water and become fully saturated. Wet the sponge before the
test and squeeze it dry as you can, and lay it on, and it will fill
rapidly and quickly. Pour a pail of water on the floor and try the same
experiment. Your sponge will not fill at all if dry, only a little as
it comes in contact with the water; but moisten it as before, and press
it nearly dry, and throw on the puddle of water, and it will drink
itself full at once, drawing up the water like a pump. You cannot wipe
up a floor with a dry sponge.
The springs and wells that have dried and receded a short distance from
their usual level from lack of moisture in the air that penetrates the
surface, quickly feel a returning moist condition and are drawn by the
same influence upward as the water climbs up through the damp sponge.
The atmosphere performs the same duty as the sponge, and this answers
why the springs and wells resume running before a drop of rain has
fallen, and which, when it comes in copious quantities, still adds to
the general effect of making a stronger draft on the fountains below.
Another question proper to ask scientists is this: If the rainfall
affects springs and lakes, how is it that the analysis of mineral
springs in all quarters of the globe is not affected by every change of
season? How can the waters of Saratoga, Carlsbad, Waukeska, Kissengen
or of any other such spring be relied on for uniform assays? How can
this great variety of springs come in such near proximity to each
other and possess such distinctive curative properties as at Saratoga,
for example? Within a radius of two or three miles are springs, one
of which is a cathartic, another a diuretic, another emetic, another
tonic, and so on, no two alike, but retain their individuality through
all times, wet or dry? They are affected only in amount of flow by the
same atmospheric conditions of either dryness or moisture, as just
described.
When the atmosphere is heavily charged with moisture, it becomes
a mammoth sponge, and this condition of air, evidently, is what
precipitates thunder showers in the summer. As all the hills and
mountains are the result of water upheavals, they are for this reason
the reservoirs of water for watering the Earth, and therefore quicker
to respond to atmospheric conditions than the plains.
It is almost without exception that thunder showers form their nucleus
on the heads of mountains and the tops of hills.
After a shower let us see the condition and results. The face of Nature
smiles after its refreshing wash; every tree and plant has drunk
its foliage full of new life; the air’s sultriness has changed to
freshness. All animated life seems to take a fresh lease, and as the
clouds roll away and the quickly swollen streams rush to the rivers,
lakes and oceans, it seems as if almost a deluge had passed by.
The remarks, “What a lovely shower!” “What a much needed rain!” “What
lots of good it will do!” etc., pass between neighbors. Farmer Smith
comes along and says, in reply to the shower being such a cracker, that
he went into his garden to set out cabbage plants, and down little over
an inch the ground was dry as powder; that while this will do lots of
good to grass, and “sich,” it wants a good soaker to get down to the
bottom of the potato hills.
Such is the history of most of our copious showers that flood
everything for half an hour, but not a drop reaches the roots of forest
trees of any depth, or does anything more than to temporarily wet and
freshen the surface.
Such being the case on the prairies and unbroken plains, the
evaporation of two or three days’ sun leaves them in almost the
condition of a desert. This was the case in our new States, Nebraska,
Kansas, Colorado and Indian Territory, which, now so productive, were,
as our early Geography describes them, before the soil was broken to
hold the rain for a while, the Great American Desert.
On a hot day the air in the valleys is still and suffocating. Climbing
up from the valley to the hill or mountain tops, you find a cool and
refreshing breeze; the moisture in the air is becoming condensed.
Here is where the philosophy of lightning seems to work a prominent
part. The cold currents of air and moisture, collecting, seem to come
in contact with this subtle and wonderful agent, and the result is
like fire to powder, a vivid flash and explosion. Stand on the plain
on a sultry day and watch that little white crest of what we call a
thunderhead. The farmer who has hay down will notice it with a little
anxiety. The sailor will think of his sails, and the picnickers will
think about going home. Soon a flash, and a dark base is forming. Soon
the rumble of thunder is heard; the girls with their bonnets on begin
to look worried. The captain on his yacht is giving orders to reef
sails, and Farmer Jones and his boys are cocking and pitching hay for
their lives.
The little white-capped clouds of an hour ago have turned into a black
and threatening massed park of artillery. Every discharge deepens and
darkens the advancing column.
Just as the vessel’s sails are dropped and snugly reefed, just as the
farmer rushes his team, with load of hay or grain, into his barn,
and the picnic is almost under cover, the big drops of rain begin to
patter. Another flash and quick report; a scream from the girls, nearly
as sharp, and they rush for shelter, and down comes a torrent of rain.
A slight cessation, another flash, and, like shaking a tree of fruit,
every electrical explosion seems to shake down a fresh reserve of rain
drops. This is in keeping with the theory that after great battles the
cannonading produces a copious rainfall.
It is a method at times adopted by military garrisons when destitute of
water, when the atmosphere is in a favorable condition for rain, to get
out a battery of artillery and have a season of vigorous firing, and
generally with successful results.
And while all this grand and complete arrangement supplies vegetation
with its bathing and drinking, as said before, it has nothing to do
with the living and lasting supply of our springs, lakes and rivers.
They are fed from a never failing and almost unchanging source--that
is, by the immense supply taken in at the polar holes in a river over
4,000 miles wide at each end of the Earth’s axis.
That the presumption of rainfall furnishing the supply for all of
our lakes, springs and wells has never been questioned seems almost
discreditable to the observing talent of our age. Whatever the
character of rainfall, either by protracted storm or sudden and copious
showers, it cannot escape our notice that the largest portion of the
water runs from the highlands to the lowlands into the gulches and
small streams, and thence to the rivers, into the ocean; so that the
percentage of water retained by the soil is much smaller than that
which runs away.
In our Western prairies, the country formerly called the Indian
Territory, the soil was covered with an almost waterproof matting of
grass roots, on which, when showers fell, the penetration was so slight
that in a very few days evaporation left them parched and dried. Since
the settling up of our territories, which were once termed deserts, the
soil has been broken by the farmer’s plow, thus admitting the rainfall
to be longer retained in the surface soil, which fact has led to the
development of lands once considered barren to become some of the most
fruitful grounds in our domain.
Another peculiar feature of climatic change may be mentioned here,
whereas until recent years thunder showers and storms were almost
unknown in many of our Western States and in the Pacific States also,
till now these storms and showers, with their electrical disturbances,
are nearly as common as in older States.
Another feature of weather which has seemed to develop in recent years
is that of milder winters in our Northern States and colder freaks in
the Southern; snows and frosts reaching States which rarely ever had
such experiences, and the burdens of snows becoming much less in States
which always expected a long season of sleighing.
It is proposed to venture the following reasons as conducive to much
of this change in weather conditions of the country at large. First,
the general denuding of our forests, which evidently has much influence
on the water courses. Next, the settling up of the whole country, and
location of cities and towns from ocean to ocean, all quite evenly
distributed, and in a great portion of them large amounts of machinery,
composed of iron and steel, producing a great amount of friction and
electrical influence in their workings; besides the almost innumerable
fires from furnaces, factories and households, discharging their heat
into the upper air. Again, the railroad system, with its millions of
tons of steel rails, make a magnetic connection between every State
and almost every county in forming one grand combination. The rush
of thousands of trains all over the country, with their friction by
wheels on the tracks, and the rush through the atmosphere, cannot
fail to influence in largely equalizing the same. Still another
potent influence must exist in the almost unlimited number of wires
for telephone and telegraph purposes, which make all the electrical
combinations more complete than anything else. If all these things
combine, it does not seem strange that magnetic and electric currents
and conditions of our weather throughout the country should be somewhat
modified.