[J. W. Gally, Dr. Gally on Cloudbursts, Pacific Rural Press, September 24, 1887]

 

Dr. Gally on Cloudbursts.

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            Editors Press :—Did you ever take note of a rural boy — a stout boy — at home, walking one way while looking another way, when he fell over a log ? You did — all right. Now, if that young ruralist was possessed of an observant turn of mind, he would arise and investigate that phenomenon, and then, being possessed of a good memory (as, mark you, most investigators are so possessed), he would carry his conclusion, whatever it might be, forward into life as part of his stock of information. That is the way I, myself, became owner of several and sundry portions of information outside my regular business. I fell over them, unless, as was sometimes the case, they fell over me. That is what makes my contributions to the Rural Press rather miscellaneous. Well, here we go again. When I was mining in Nye county, Nevada, and laying the foundation of the town of Tybo, in that county, I took a long, roundabout, roadless ride on horseback of over 100 miles, to Eureka, Nevada, " all on a summer's day " or two; and very hot days they were. I forget the day or the year, but perhaps it was in 1871 or 1872 A. D. All day long, the first day, as I rode the homeless, houseless, roadless desert alone, there loomed in front of me the tall crest of the Diamond mountain, situate some miles north of my destination, and on its side, away up toward the summit, was one spot of white snow — the snow of last winter still not thawed; and though I then supposed that there might be several acres of snow up there yet, in the long perspective of 50 to 75 miles of the distance I was shortening, stride at a time, it looked to be just about as much icy substance as I then needed to cool my "parched tongue." I could not help seeing that snow all day long, for I was riding right at it. It was a great aggravation, because in the clear desert atmosphere, 50 or 70 miles is to the eye but a short promenade, and I was plainsman or desertman (which you choose to have it), enough to know that. The nearness to the eye and the farness to the fact concerning that exalted spot of ice-cold, "hope deferred " so forcibly reminded me of one of the songs my best girl used to sing, when I leaned, away back East, on the corner of the piano, turning the music sheets, that I thought I would sing to myself (and the home):

* * * * "beautiful star,

Thou art so near and yet so far."

            And now, herein*, in remote former times — temporibus antiquissimus, in fact — I could troll a ditty with the best beau in the county, on this occasion the failure was so dismal and the dry croak so alarming that I wheeled the horse about to see if some other fellow wasn't doing that; and when I wheeled about I saw a cloud in the sky running from the southeasterly. I had not seen a cloud, barring a dust cloud, for many months, because in Southern Nevada a fog cloud or rain cloud is what you seldom see, and this was not a very big cloud — not to the eye bigger than a country schoolhouse, but it was flying toward Diamond mountain and flying pretty fast; and I noticed that it was a rather dark, though not what is called a black, cloud. I turned my horse's head again toward my spot of snow, and then I beheld another cloud coming, away off, from the opposite direction toward this first cloud, and both clouds heading for the Diamond. As they approached each other and the mountain they both grew larger and they both got blacker. I was approaching the Diamond at the gait of six to eight miles an hour, but my cloud (that is, the one I first saw) soon, like Mac's dagger, "marshaled me the way that I was going," and outran me as though I stood still; but I could see him all the same, and as he neared the mountain he began to growl and rumble in a sort of big, low roar. The other cloud set up the roar as he approached the mountain, and both clouds flashed red, now and again. By and by both clouds came together around or over the Diamond mountain, in a canyon of which is situate the mining town of Eureka, and there they roared and bolted and spit sheets, streaks and zigzags of lightning for about 30 or 40 minutes, and then all was again clear and still; but my spot of snow was gone.

            I slept that night, after a very long day's ride, alone in the desert to the reverberant music of the cumulative coyote. Next day, about noon, I rode down the canyon into Eureka, but when I had reached the forks of the canyon, I found the bottom washed out of the road, and general destruction of everything that water could sweep away. Meandering among gullies and scaling along hillsides, I reached Eureka, and there was a scene of havoc, mourning and ruin. Several persons were dead — drowned — or rather choked with mud; and the main street of a prosperous town, almost a city, was a yawning ditch ten feet deep and twice that many feet wide. The rink, a large wooden structure, was whirled off its base, houses were torn to pieces, iron steam-boilers were carried clear below town, and great, heavy quartz-wagons broken into stove wood. Three to five miles below town, out of the canyon in the Diamond valley was a dump of debris about a mile long, consisting of parts of everything used by a civilized, industrious people, mixed with branches of trees, stones, and mud. And yet not one drop of rain had fallen in Eureka or within two miles of that town. The water — the flood — had all come of and from those two clouds which I had watched and listened to on the day previous. The same clouds which blotted out my spot of snow and destroyed my hope of a gulp of ice water. It was a "cloudburst."

The Theory of Cloudbursts

            Is that two currents of electricity, particularly in our higher metallic altitudes, get up a sort of a footrace in a contest to find out and prove which can get to the summit of a high mountain first, and, being of a very thirsty nature (as is a well-known fact regarding electricity), and the race across the horizon being a long and dry one, they sometimes overdo it by carrying too much water, and, not steering straight, they come together kerwhack and spill everything on top of the mountain. This theory, however, does not suit me so well as the one  upon which my pious father, who was a Methodist exhorter, used to rely when singing —

                                    "God moves in a mysterious way

                                                His wonders to perform;

                                    He plants His footsteps on the sea

                                                And rides upon the storm."

            I am becoming each day more and more satisfied that my father's solution of scientific phenomena is baaed upon a very complete and handy basis. I think that eventually, if I survive my own errors long enough to be otherwise wise than in my "own conceit" I will adopt the parental philosophy.

            I had another interesting — that is, it was interesting to me at the time, very —  interview with a cloudburst, which I will probably relate on some future occasion.

            Perhaps, when all is said, the "cloudburst " is but a form of the cyclone, modified by the shape of the country. At a cursory glance from an unscientific eye, the true cyclone on land is a phenomenon peculiar to great interior valleys opening toward the north or the south pole; and we will remember that the space of territory between the great ranges of the Rocky and Sierra Nevada mountains, though terribly tossed, tumbled and broken, is, after all, a great valley; and I am willing to suppose that if a philosopher could go ballooning about and around at a level of 6000 feet above tidewater for about 20 years in the territory I have last spoken of he would be struck by  regular cyclone. For I think the cyclone is up there. I have thought so ever since I saw those clouds whirling across the sky in Nevada as heretofore related.

            I would say that if any really scientific gentleman should wish to use the description of how the cloudburst at Eureka was born as an instance of that character of phenomena, he need not be deterred by the levity which seems to be evinced by this writer. The facts as set down are facts — the great cloudburst at Eureka, Nevada, is a historic fact.

            Watsonville, Cal.                                                                      J. W. GALLY.