This phenomenon has been noticed from the earliest times. Shakespeare wrote three centuries ago, in “The Tempest:”

When Lysander was about to set sail from Lampsacus to attack the Athenian fleet, “Castor and Pollux” appeared upon each side of the Lacedemonian admiral’s vessel, greatly encouraging him. Such were the names of the strange lights among the ancients: and ever and anon we find record of their appearance.

This title needs explanation. This peculiar halo is not confined to the sea, nor to inanimate objects. The electric aureole has been frequently observed upon persons, and has always been considered a good omen. The Spartan Gylippus on his march to raise the siege of Syracuse, saw a star upon his lance and rejoiced at the token of divine favor. Nearly every tyro in Latin is familiar with the tale that Servius Tullius, when a child, was found asleep in his cradle with flames playing about him, and was in consequence educated like a prince, and became king of Rome. Stories of halos about Constantine the Great, and the Visigoth emperor Wamba, are also told. It is said that during Cæsar’s African war, flames sprang from the standards of the fifth legion during a stormy night: and at a time when Rome, almost in despair at the triumphs of Carthage and the death of two Scipios in Spain, was seriously meditating the abandonment of the contest, Lucius Marcius ventured upon a harangue to encourage the dispirited legions. While he spoke, a flame rested upon his helmet. Roused by the wonderful mark of divine favor, the Romans went forth yet again, and gained one of their greatest victories. What might have been the fate of the world if Carthage, not Rome, had prevailed? Who dare assert that an electric flame has not changed the destinies of the universe?

But the earliest story of this sort comes from the famed expedition of the Argo, in search of the Golden Fleece. During a fearful storm Orpheus invoked the gods of Samothracia; and immediately divine lights appeared upon the heads of Castor and Pollux, two members of the party, and the storm ceased. So after death the two mythical heroes were promoted a place among the demi-gods, and became the especial patrons of sailors: and the strange lights on shipboard were supposed to indicate their presence. A single light, however, was supposed to bode evil, and to be the work of the mischief-making Helena.

Since the extension of travel and scientific research, this phenomenon has been so frequently observed as to be no longer considered remarkable; and it is supposed to be due to electric clouds or currents coming in direct contact with objects, so that instead of the flash of lightning from a distance, there is a steady discharge, often with some hissing or crackling sound, noticeable at the brushes of any electric machine; in fact, the noise is seldom absent. It almost invariably appears before or after a thunder storm: and has hardly ever been observed during one. To this same cause must be attributed the occasional showers of luminous rain and dust.

But no amount of science can rob such appearances of their terrors for the uninitiated. Of scores of instances we might name, a single one will suffice. Prof. Siemens tells of an unusual electric disturbance during a Khamsin, while his party and his Arab guides were upon the summit of the great pyramid. Hearing a hissing noise as the wind rose, he at length concluded it must be due to electricity: and “holding up a full wine-bottle, the head of which was coated with tin foil,” the same hissing was increased. The bottle was then wrapped with moist paper, to increase its capacity. Even before this, a severe shock could be obtained from the head of the bottle.

“The Arabs, who for some time had been looking on with astonishment at our proceedings, came to the conclusion that we were practicing magic, and insisted upon our leaving the pyramid. Their remonstrances being of no avail, they now wanted to use the right of the stronger, and to make us descend by force. I retreated to the highest stone block and loaded my bottle as strongly as possible, while the leader of the Arabs seized me by the other hand and was endeavoring to drag me down. At this critical moment, I touched him with the neck of the bottle, and the effects of the shock it produced were such as to surpass my keenest expectations. The son of the desert, whose nerves had never before felt a similar commotion, fell flat down upon the ground, as if struck by lightning; and then springing up with a dreadful howl, soon vanished out of sight, followed by all his comrades.”

These cases of halos and electric aureoles thus far mentioned, have clearly played a far more important part in the history of nations than the more frequently occurring lightning stroke, merely because of the wonderful hold they have had upon the superstitious tendency of man. Leave Servius Tullius out of the history of Rome, or leave out the speech and aureole of Marcius, and who can say how different the face of the earth might be?

More frequently observed, and because of its frequency, comparatively unheeded in northern climes, is the aurora, which in the temperate zone has frequently inspired terror equal to the earthquake, though absolutely harmless. The writer recalls that a bright aurora not so very many years ago caused not a few superstitious folk to believe the end of the world was at hand. They believed the red streamers to be the chariot of fire in which the Lord was speeding earthward. This was the great aurora of September 3, 1859, which was visible from the United States to Siberia, from the Cape of Good Hope and Australia to the north of Europe. It was the most tremendous ever known, and well calculated to terrify the superstitious.[A]

Humboldt, and others since, have supposed the aurora to be light emitted by the earth itself; but to-day its electric character is proven beyond a doubt. Electric discharges passed through a tube containing greatly rarefied dry air produce the same effect on a small scale; and every aurora produces a powerful disturbance of magnetic instruments. In most cases, they are attended by a hissing, crackling noise: so the Siberians are wont to say that “the raging host is passing.”

We find occasional references to the aurora among ancient writers, but little attempt to explain it. So we have even few myths, it not being common enough in warmer climes to hold a place in popular tales. But in Iceland, and more northern regions, it is of constant and brilliant occurrence, merely because it requires dry air, and the coldest air is the driest. So among Scandinavian races appears the myth embodied by Longfellow in the “Saga of King Olaf.” The war god, Thor, speaks:

And Scott has told us of the belief in Scotland and the northern isles, of spirits abroad in the upper air:

The light emitted by the aurora varies much in intensity. Ordinarily it is not greater than that of the moon in her first quarter; but a few instances are recorded where it was powerful enough to make itself perceptible by day; and on one occasion it was strong enough at night to cast a shadow in the midst of a Newfoundland fog. As the phenomenon has been carefully studied only within a century, it is not safe to affirm with certainty what records of the past three hundred years have induced many to believe; that it is of special frequency at periods of one hundred and fifty years. This can only apply to the temperate zones; for in the polar world it is to be seen on almost every clear still night.

M. Martins has given us a striking picture of the auroras. “At times they are simple diffused gleams or luminous patches; at others, quivering rays of pure white which run across the sky, starting from the horizon as if an invisible pencil were being drawn over the celestial vault. At times it stops in its course: the incomplete rays

do not reach the zenith, but the aurora continues at some other point; a bouquet of rays darts forth, spreads out into a fan, then becomes pale and dies out. At other times long golden draperies float above the head of the spectator, and take a thousand folds and undulations, as if agitated by the wind. They appear to be at but a slight elevation in the atmosphere, and it seems strange that the rustling of the folds, as they double back on each other, is not audible. Generally a luminous bow is seen in the north; a black segment separates it from the horizon, its dark color forming a contrast with the pure white or red of the bow, which darts forth the rays, extends, becomes divided, and soon presents the appearance of a luminous fan, which fills the northern sky, and mounts nearly to the zenith, where the rays, uniting, form a crown, which in its turn, darts forth luminous jets in all directions. The sky then looks like a cupola of fire: blue, green, red, yellow and white vibrate in the palpitating rays of the aurora. But this brilliant spectacle lasts only a few minutes; the crown first ceases to emit luminous jets, and then gradually dies out; a diffuse light fills the sky; here and there a few luminous patches, resembling light clouds, open and close with an incredible rapidity, like a heart that is beating very fast. They soon get pale in their turn; everything fades away and becomes confused; the aurora seems to be in its death-throes; the stars, which its light had obscured, shine with a renewed brightness; and the long polar night, sombre and profound, again assumes its sway over the icy solitudes of earth and ocean.”

In the presence of such brilliancy and beauty, both poet and artist may despair. It may be copied only by the master hand that sent it flaming through the heavens. There is naught under the sun whereunto to liken it, and it is the electric flash which men may least fear; and yet, even it has wrought evil at times; for its magnetic power disturbs the compass; and the electric storms it betokens have more than once in the past caused electric wires to set objects near them on fire. I well remember the powerful electric disturbances that attended a magnificent aurora in 1884, which was visible as far as southern Arkansas. Depots were fired in many places by electric switch-boards; one in Pennsylvania taking fire four times. During this electric storm, telegraphs and telephones were temporarily useless.

Such are the phenomena presented in the atmosphere by this most mysterious power. Dreadful in the lightning’s leap, strange and uncanny in the aureole’s glow, wildly and weirdly beautiful in the flickering flash and flow of the Northern Light, we have seen that, though it has played an important part in the history of the world because of its appeal to man’s superstition, it is notwithstanding the occasional bolt of death, to be considered, while one of the most powerful and universal, one of the least to be feared of all the forces of nature; and is practicably responsible for few great disasters.

CHAPTER XIII.

RAIN, HAIL AND SNOW.

THE cloud is well worth Shelley’s admiration; for though it be but a vague oppressive mist when it enwraps, yet afar it assumes either beauty or gloom, as its seeming whims may dictate. Few are they who have never paused in silent admiration of some beautiful fleecy spirit of the upper deep, changing every instant like the shifting figures of a kaleidoscope, or presenting fantastic likenesses of natural objects, or ever and anon presenting pictures of strange monsters, such as only the superstitious and timid can imagine. Often in times past have nations stood aghast at the portentous signs observed in season of some great calamity. A lurid beam of light from the hidden sun, darting through a rift in the clouds, has been reported as a flaming sword. Shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem, the sky was filled with horses and chariots, rushing to battle. After the siege the wretched survivors recognized too late what was the purpose of the warning.

Wordsworth speaks of these bizarre fantasies:

And naught can present so sombre and terrifying an aspect as those phantoms of the air, when mailed with the lightning and flying with the storm.

Yet, upon the cloud the welfare of the human race is dependent, as much as upon any other force in nature: for rain or drouth, famine or plenty, snow or flood, all follow in its path. More than once has rain or storm decided the destiny of nations. Far different might our own lot have been, if that bitter storm of Christmas night, 1777, had not given Washington an opportunity of surprising the carousing Hessians in Trenton, and so reviving the drooping spirits of his countrymen. Hardly would he have escaped, but that the sudden frost hardened the ground and enabled him to steal away by night with his artillery, leaving the chafing Cornwallis the privilege of attacking the deserted camp on the Assanpink in the morning. It was a winter storm that enabled the bold Vermonters to surprise the frowning fortress on the upper Hudson. Napoleon could invade Russia, and drive the Cossack pell-mell before him; no mortal power could control the elements; and his splendid hosts melted away like snow in the breath of the icy storm; and once more the Cossack sang to his steed:

Again the “Man of Destiny” was conquered by the elements.

as the dread combat of Waterloo prepared. The plan of the “Genius of War” was superb. But all his contests were problems of artillery. “The Lord is on the side of the strongest battalions and heaviest artillery"—bold manner of saying that “when one seeks for the reason of the successes of great generals, one is surprised to find that they did everything necessary to insure them.” But he who would insure success must have the clouds at his beck. That night it rained. The mud crippled his artillery and left the contest to the rifle and bayonet. Waterloo was lost. A shower of rain changed the face of Europe—the history of the world.

Scriptural narrative and the sage Josephus tell us how the Philistine host were cut down by the motley rabble of almost unarmed Israelites, routed mainly by a terrific thunder storm that beat in their faces, flamed upon their weapons, and transformed the disciplined army into a panic-stricken multitude. What might have been the future of Israel and the Jewish faith, but for the intervention of that storm? We need not multiply instances.

The causes that produce the different phenomena of condensation in rain, hail and snow, are not known. Rainfall is the most indefinite of all the atmospheric phenomena in location, quantity, frequency, and distribution. The winds do not vary greatly, one year with another; but such is not the case with the rain. Sometimes the condensation is slow and the moisture falls on the earth as mist. Some suppose that the rainfall is due merely to the cold of great elevations: and this would seem to be well supported by the prevalence of fogs on the Newfoundland banks, where the constant cold current and the occasional icebergs produce a similar degree of cold at sea level, condensing the moisture from the warm seas southward. Others urge that two masses of saturated air of different temperature combine, necessarily condensing the surplus; and the Newfoundland banks are again referred to as an illustration.

Light on fog-banks often presents peculiar and beautiful illusions. The writer remembers having seen a whole town apparently wrapped in flames, the effect being produced by the lights from many windows shining through a light mist that was curling and twisting before a light breeze. Similar causes produce the peculiar halos and mock-suns and mock-moons not infrequently seen in the sky. These, and the beautiful rainbow, all depend upon the reflection and refraction of light in passing through vapor masses. These curious spectacles once had no little terror for the ignorant and superstitious. Shakespeare doubtless alludes to some such case in the dialogue between Hubert and King John, making Hubert narrate an exaggerated version of the facts, as the superstitiously inclined rabble reported it:

Sometimes an appearance more terrifying to the uninitiated is seen. The traveler in Germany may hear strange myths of specters that frequent the mountains. It was long said that spirits dwelt on the summit of the Matterhorn. Gigantic phantoms roamed the Harz Mountains. One of the best known of all these apparitions is the famous “Specter of the Brocken.” The wanderer on the lonely height at sunrise may see upon a neighboring summit a gigantic shadowy figure, moving about, and mimicking every motion of the traveler. Of course, it is but his shadow on a neighboring fog-bank; but the solution remained a mystery long enough to terrify many a simple peasant into needless invocations of the saints. But similar appearances are occasionally observable in many localities. The Spaniard Ulloa records that on the mountain Pambamarca, in Peru, he saw his shadow on the cloud surrounded by three complete circular rainbows. The same peculiarity has been frequently noticed elsewhere, but never on so grand a scale. We find no peculiar myths concerning halos in general, it being generally considered that they announce the approach of rain; and the fog-bank is of no especial danger save to the seaman, or the traveler overtaken and blinded by one in mountain fastnesses; though their depressing influence has led one writer to exclaim:

And the fog, though not ornamental—unless we except that dry haze, the Indian summer—may be useful in preventing a frost, or in keeping a parched earth from drying too rapidly. But for this last, all the world prefers the rain, and sings with Longfellow:

Not always welcome; for we find the same poet moaning:

And certainly, the farmer who looks through the driving rain at his ruined crops has little sentiment left to expend upon its beauty. But the world over, after a rain every feature of a landscape stands out with singular clearness; the haze commonly prevalent has for the nonce disappeared.

The amount of rainfall varies so vastly in different countries, that it would be tedious to the reader to enter upon a detail of the different amounts. In general it is greatest upon those portions of the land first reached by regular incoming sea winds. So in South America, Peru and southern Ecuador are practically without rain, as the Andes and the Amazon forests deprive the trade winds of their moisture ere they reach the Pacific coast; while southern Chili seldom sees the sun; lying in the track of the return trades, whose moisture is at once precipitated by the Andes. So in India the monsoon which pours deluges of water along the southwestern coasts, brings but twenty-three inches a year to the central plateau; and by the time Central Asia is reached, it is so dry the steppes of Tartary must remain almost a desert. And in our own land, we find in general the heaviest rain from the eastern coast to the central region: while the western plateau along the eastern slopes of the Rockies is unusually dry, and liable to protracted drouths: and in the Mojave desert, and in southeastern California, the rainfall is less than two inches per year. On the North Pacific coast the rainfall increases rapidly, as in the southern Andes; but in general our highest mean rainfall is in the southern portion of the Gulf States. The highest average in the world is so far credited to Sumatra, one hundred and thirty inches. This, of course, refers to tracts of considerable size; for a small tract in Assam, on a mountain slope, where is the town of Cherrapungee, has a rainfall of four hundred and ninety-three and two-tenth inches per annum—more than forty-one feet! Twenty-two feet of rain have fallen there in a single month! A better idea of this may be obtained by observing that our average rainfall, from Missouri eastward, is about three feet a year. The rains of the Amazon and Congo basins are enormous, and would suffice to swell our Mississippi to as great volume as either of them. On the other hand, the lowest recorded rainfall for a large tract is that of Greenland—fifteen and five-tenth inches; while Australia, with fifteen and seven-tenth inches, is but little better off. It may be mentioned here, that the term “mean rainfall” includes snow also: ten inches of snow being ordinarily estimated as one inch of rain.

A point long mooted, now considered as definitely settled, was, the influence of forests upon rainfall. There was no doubt that forests retarded the descent of water into the streams, and so lessened the danger of floods; and observations of late years have shown that the forest also increases the amount of rainfall, aiding in the work of condensation. In the northern lumber regions, the rainfall in the cleared tracts is less than in the time of the forests, while floods are more sudden and dangerous.

These general features being noticed, mention of a few extraordinary rainfalls may be of interest. The most remarkable rain in one day occurred September 13, 1879, at Purneah, in Bengal, when thirty-five inches fell; about as much as Illinois gets in a year. At Nagina, thirty-two and four-tenth inches fell. Some extraordinary showers have been recorded in our own country, the most rapid being one and one-half inches in five minutes: the most rapid long one, ten inches in three hours; but no record of a day in anywise approaches the Bengal rain.

A peculiar phenomenon of occasional occurrence in the Western States is that of “cloud-bursts,” or “water-spouts” as they are sometimes called, when immense masses of water fall in a few minutes. As the entire amount of moisture that can be held by the atmosphere at ordinary temperature would make but two inches of rain, it must follow that to produce such downpours as are here recorded, immense quantities of moisture from a wide area must be drawn in and condensed rapidly at a single point. Perhaps this is done by a reverse cyclonic movement, the atmosphere rapidly descending in a “spout,” instead of ascending.

August 11, 1876, a tremendous downpour occurred at Fort Sully, Dakota: “and on the opposite side of the Missouri River, the water draining from a canon was reported to have moved out in a solid bank three feet deep and two hundred feet wide.” Two others of nearly equal violence occurred during the same month: one in Utah, and one in Kansas. “June 12, 1879, on Beaver Creek, ninety miles south of Deadwood, Dakota, there was a cloud-burst, which, without a gradual rise of water, in a few minutes covered the country and drowned eleven persons.” A cloud-burst in June, 1884, sent a torrent eight feet deep from the hillside into Jefferson, Montana, drowning several persons. Another one in June, 1885, destroyed a town in Mexico, drowning over one hundred and seventy of its eight hundred inhabitants. Cloud-bursts near Pittsburg, on the night of July 25, 1874, destroyed $500,000 worth of property, and drowned or crushed in the wrecks, one hundred and thirty-four persons. A cloud-burst in Arizona, August 6, 1881, changed the Hassayampa River from a dry ravine at sunset to a river a mile wide and from two to fifteen feet deep by 11 P.M.; by noon next day the river was again dry. Two days later a downpour at Central City, Colorado, suddenly left from four to six feet of water in the two principal streets.

Snow is practically unknown over two-thirds of the land surface of the earth, and the damage done by it is confined largely to the inland regions of the temperate zone. And even then heavy snowfalls do no great injury unless followed by extremely cold wind. The blizzard laden with “icy sand” is fearful.

The extreme ranges of temperature produced suddenly by high area or anti-cyclonic storms are the most dangerous features of the blizzard; while the only damage done by snow is to blind the person caught away from home, and cause him to lose his way. The past ten years have been marked by severe storms in our own winter season, the most terrible being that of January 11, 1888, when the wind blew from thirty to fifty miles an hour, and large numbers of persons in the west were frozen, and thousands of cattle perished. At Helena, Montana, the thermometer fell fifty degrees in four and one-half hours. The snow-laden wind reached a speed of forty miles an hour at Galveston, Texas. At Brownsville, Texas, the temperature fell forty degrees in eight hours. Two months later came an exceedingly heavy snow attended by high winds, in the eastern Middle States. This is popularly known as the “New York blizzard.” Snow drifted in many places ten or fifteen feet deep.

The chief damage in all snow storms results from the temporary obstruction of roads and cessation of business. No very great destruction of human life has ever resulted, save in case of armies overtaken by the storm. Napoleon lost four hundred and fifty thousand men on his Russian expedition. Both armies suffered terribly in the recent Russo-Turkish war, as they lay facing each other at Shipka Pass.

The constant accumulations of snow in the colder regions of the earth produce those immense rivers of ice known as glaciers, the fragments breaking from which as they enter the sea are known as icebergs. These, borne by currents to the southward, have no small influence in modifying the climate. In mountainous regions the accumulations of snow and ice produce snow-slides and avalanches; but owing to their entirely local character, the damage wrought by them is comparatively insignificant, not even approaching the lightning in the total.

Hail has been far more destructive. As stated elsewhere, the cause of hail is hitherto unexplained. The storm usually travels in narrow belts. Many are the wonderful tales told of it. It is said that May 8, 1802, a mass of ice weighing eleven hundred pounds fell in Hungary. Again, we hear of an ice-block the size of an elephant, which fell near Seringapatam, in the reign of Tippoo Sahib. The good father Huc, in his travels in Tartary, reported the fall of an ice-block the size of a millstone, which, in very warm weather, required three days to melt. And we are told that in the time of Charlemagne, there fell hailstones fifteen feet long, eleven feet wide and six feet thick. All these we steadfastly do not believe.

Yet, there are well authenticated records of many disastrous hail storms and enormous hailstones. A storm in France, in 1788, traveled in two bands: one, four hundred and twenty by ten miles; the other, five hundred by five miles. Five million dollars worth of property was destroyed. In 1865 a severe storm swept a wide path from Bordeaux to Belgium, accumulating in such masses that it was not all melted in one or two localities for four days. One bed was one and one-fourth miles long and two-fifths of a mile wide, containing twenty-one million cubic feet. Doubtless similar accumulations in depressions, adhering together, gave rise to the tales of enormous blocks mentioned above.

An enormous hail storm in India, in 1853, is said to have killed eighty-four persons and three thousand cattle. During a storm at Naini Tal, in 1855, hailstones weighing one and one-half pounds fell. Our own land has had a number of severe hail storms within the past ten years, that have done immense damage to crops, and occasionally killed cattle, while smaller animals have perished by hundreds. Frequent are the records of hailstones as large as oranges, goose-eggs, and occasionally as large as a fist, with gathered drifts two or three feet deep. Europe has also had several of her smaller towns nearly destroyed by combined flood and hail. Yet, none of these equal in fatality the great hail storm of two years since at Moradabad, India.

It smashed in windows, glass doors and the lighter roofs, “The verandas were blown away by the wind. A great part of the roof fell in, and the massive pucca portico was blown down. The walls shook. It was nearly dark outside, and hailstones of enormous size were dashed down with a force which I have never seen anything to equal. * * * There were long ridges of hail one or two feet in depth. * * * Not a house in the civil station that did not receive the most serious injury.

“Two hundred and thirty deaths in all have been reported up to the present time. The total number may be safely put as under two hundred and fifty. Men caught in the open and without shelter, were simply pounded to death by the hail.”

Spain and southern France have on record some showers of extremely large hailstones. In 1829, masses of ice weighing four and one-half pounds fell at Cazorta, Spain. Houses were stove-in by them. During a hurricane in the south of France, in 1844, there fell ice-masses weighing eleven pounds.

Mysterious and ominous to those ignorant of their cause have been the many showers of “ink, blood, sulphur,” falls of red or green snow, and similar phenomena. Such things were believed to betoken the wrath of God, and to forebode war, famine, pestilence, flood, and other dire calamities. Of course, the good people knew exactly what any shower meant—after the calamity occurred. When it didn’t occur, the shower was simply a warning.

That such phenomena are readily explained goes without saying; and not a few of the wise of days past have refused to be seriously alarmed, though they could not find a correct solution of the mystery. Some of the philosophic minds of other days endeavored to explain these occurrences by supposing blood vaporized from battle-fields was mingled with rain, not knowing that the red portion of the blood can not evaporate.

The microscope has solved these mysteries. The rains of blood are merely stained by earthy matter: sometimes organic, gathered by the wind; sometimes volcanic dust, thrown out by eruptions; and in one case, where numerous blood-spots appeared on houses and fences in Provence, in 1608, and the priests asserted it was the work of the devil, the spots at length proved to be the excrement of butterflies. Rains of melted sulphur have been found to owe their color to the yellow pollen of pine trees. Ink is merely sooty rain-water. Showers of this character are more frequent than might be supposed. More than a score have occurred in Europe in the present century; and a number in this country. Red and green snow owe their color to microscopic vegetable life, and are quite commonly met with in the Arctic world. One bold headland has long been known as Crimson Cliff, from the extensive deposits of red snow there.

CHAPTER XIV.

FLOODS IN THE SOUTH.

EVERY country is confronted with a serious problem in its great rivers. In some lands the only problem is, how to get rid of flood-water as quickly as possible: in others, comes the additional question of securing sufficient water for irrigation during the dry season. Egypt occupies an anomalous position, the latter question being the only one of any practical interest. Without rains, she depends on the rise of the Nile for her existence, and no one dreams of such a thing as endeavoring to check the overflow. During seed-time the fellaheen may be seen sometimes in mud knee-deep, busily planting their fields; and in summer they may be seen hoisting water from the stream and emptying it into their irrigating ditches.

In our own land, we have hitherto had no need of irrigation, except in those districts where there is no fear of a flood: such as the arid regions of our southwestern states. In China, the people are contending with both sides of the problem; and their success in the second feature has not greatly surpassed their achievements in the first. In most other lands, the flood problem is the chief one. The Amazon at flood time rises from sixty to one hundred feet, and its volume is almost inconceivable. But since the larger part of its course lies in an almost uninhabited region, the high water gives no concern to the people. The Orinoco rises so high, and is in such a level region, that during part of the year one of its upper tributaries flows backward and reaches the Amazon.

The great length of the Mississippi and Missouri present the gravest difficulties. The sources of each lie in regions where heavy snows fall during a considerable part of the winter: and all the melting snows of the central portion of the country—from western Pennsylvania to Colorado, Montana and central Dakota—must find their way to the sea by way of the single stream. By reason of the difference in latitude and altitude, the melted snows of the head-waters usually swell the lower river in May and early in June, after the spring rains are over. But it quite often happens that after unusually heavy winter snows the warm weather sets in in the mountains very early: so that the great floods of the upper valleys reach the lower river just when extremely heavy rains are prevalent in the central and southern regions. This forms a combination that is terrible to combat, and is the cause of all the trouble. The present system is effective in ordinary cases; but for the occasional great exceptions it has hitherto proved insufficient. We do not seem to be any nearer a practical solution of the problem than when it first presented itself. Yet, the government of the United States spends millions of dollars every year in attempts which have, so far at least, proved totally futile to confine the great river within its banks, and so avoid the perils which every spring threaten an area larger than all New England and the Middle States.

The wonderful and often terrible changes that come with the changes of season, and which produce such effects as the illustrations show, are simply inconceivable to one who has not seen them. That a stream so quiet and comparatively small as the Mississippi is at low water, should become a raging torrent of twenty miles average width, and ten feet average depth from shore to shore, throughout the eleven hundred miles from Cairo to the sea, is simply incredible until one has seen it. This river, however, did that in 1882, when the great general overflow occurred. Unnumbered lives were lost that year, and the damage to property was never even estimated. Details were hard to get when communication was so nearly cut off as it then was; and after the floods were over, no effort was made to reckon the extent of the disaster.

Since that spring the reports have not indicated any flood equal to the present one; and the only reason why this year has not proved as disastrous as 1882, is that the levees have been strengthened since then. The fact, however, that the levee system has, as a whole, successfully withstood the pressure of the highest water known for many years, is by no means as reassuring as it seems on first consideration; for there is grave reason to believe that the levees themselves serve to increase the very danger against which they are a guard.

The planters of the earlier days made efforts to protect themselves by means of “levees:” a name given by the