Soils, their formation, properties, composition, and relations to climate and plant growth in the humid and arid regionsHilgard, Eugene W. (Eugene Woldemar)
Science
Soils, their formation, properties, composition, and relations to climate and plant growth in the humid and arid regions
Hilgard, Eugene W. (Eugene Woldemar)
Soils
But while this is measurably true of inland and especially
of continental areas like the great plains of North and
South America, it is also true that in deep moist valleys,
and on the rainy and foggy coast regions of continents,
dews are found to both fall and rise, not uncommonly to
such an extent as to be equivalent to a not inconsiderable
aggregate precipitation. Thus in the moist coast belt of
Oregon and Washington lying west of the Cascade range of
mountains, the morning dews of summer are frequently so
copious that the water falls in showers from the lower trees
and shrubs, so as to necessitate the use of water-proof
clothing when traversing the woods in the morning, quite as
much as though rain was actually falling. In hilly and more
especially in mountainous regions the cold air descending
from above and flowing down in the ravines will often cause
a heavy condensation of dew in these, while the bordering
ridges, which rise above the cold currents, remain free from
dew. These descending currents as a rule not only bring no
surplus moisture with them, but in their downward course
become warmer by contraction and therefore relatively drier.
In these cases also, therefore, the dew is purely moisture
derived from the ground, which in rising encounters the cold
air and is thus condensed.
The fact that dew is most commonly derived from the soil could have
been foreseen from the other fact, long ascertained and known, that
during the night the soil is as a rule warmer than the air above it; as
has been shown by the earlier observers, as well as more specifically
by Stockbridge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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