Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/242

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��Popular Science Monthly

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��Removing Snow Jrom City Streets Several devices for melting snow the. streets have been introduced or sug- gested, but, except for cleaning side- walks, they have not come into practical use. One plan is to flush the streets with

hot water. A

special car, equipped with steam pipes for melting snow, has been successfully used by the Penn- sylvania Railroad in its yards at Phila- delphia, and a simi- lar dev'ice would probably be suita- ble for municipal use. The snow shoveled into shallow re- the upper

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��part of the where it is im- mediately melted by the steam. The lower part of car forms tank in which water accumulates, and from which it is drawn off and emptied into sewers when the tank is full.

Many and formidable are the snow prob- lems with which the railways have to grapple, and the solutions take the form of snow sheds, fences, ploughs of various types, flangers, gasoline torches for melting snow in switches, etc. Notwithstanding all these expedients heavy snowstorms still result in tieups or the serious demoraliza- tion of schedules.

Special warnings are issued by the Weather Bureau when- ever a heavy fall of snow is in prospect. These are interest- ing not only to the railways, traction companies and street cleaning authorities but also to stock-raisers on the western plains, where timely notice of an approaching snowstorm makes it possible to get the cattle in from the ranges and save them from starvation.

The Snow and Ice Bulletin which the Weather Bureau publishes weekly during the winter shows, by means of a

���A snow sampler is a metal tube or bore which is forced down into the snow to secure a sample. When the snow is shallow a bucket is used

��table and chart, the depth of snow on the ground at a great number of places through- out the country, and also contains a review of the snow conditions of the preceding week. This is of value to the railways, shippers, and everybody interested in crops subject to winter- killing, especially winter wheat.

How Snowfalls Are Measured

One of the most interesting snow problems — and one that has attracted much attention in recent years — relates to the measurement of snowfall in the mountainous regions of the west from which comes most of the water used for irrigation in the ad- jacent lowlands. The mountains not only receive much more snowfall than the lowlands, but they retain it much longer. Thus a mountain constitutes a snow reservoir, which feeds the water reservoir constructed by the irrigation engineer.

In connection with the reclamation projects it is important to know how much snow falls, from year to year and also on an average, over the watersheds from which irrigation watfer is supplied. The Weather Bureau has accordingly established, in

���Stock-raisers throughout the west and northwest are severe sufferers from snowstorms. Special warnings are sent to them

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