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National Geographic : 1903 May
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18 THE NATIONAL From F. H. Newell, U. S. Geological Survey A Band of About 2,000 Sheep Grazing on the Mountain Slopes of Oregon, About 6,000 Feet Above Sea-level " Our mountains, though of little use for agriculture, provide a large amount of fine grazing land." in winter and chill us to the bone. We know that northern India is thus pro tected by the Himalayas and northern Italy by the Alps so that the average winter temperature on the French and Italian Riviera is warmer than at Rome. It is questionable however whether such a climatic barrier would be of any ad vantage to us as a people for our diver sity of climate tends to intensify stamina and energy. Our mountains are the largest sources of water power which is more valuable than ever now that electricity is used for the transmission of power. They add largely to our timber resources and though of little use for agriculture they provide a large amount of fine grazing land. Their rock waste is spread over the surround ing plains to their enrichment and they husband our water resources where they are most needed. It is among the moun tains that reservoirs are to be built to conserve water from the melting snows and glaciers and advantageously dis tribute it over the regions to be irrigated which, it is estimated, may reclaim 50,000,000 acres to fertility. Our mountains are partly responsible for the prevailing aridity of the plateau region for though the Pacific coast from Puget Sound to a little south of San Francisco has abundant precipitation the rain clouds are wrung nearly dry among the mountains so that there is little moisture left to distribute over the plains east of them; but nearly half of our Pacific coast to the south of San Francisco is in the zone of the northeast trade winds which girdle the world in the Northern Hemisphere, blowing most of the time as dry winds off the land in stead of coming to the land as moist winds from the sea; so that even if there were no high mountains in the southern part of California the adjacent country GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
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