Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 225, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1916 — Fifty Feet of Snow in July. [ARTICLE]

Fifty Feet of Snow in July.

Snow 50 feet deep within 18 miles of Santa Fe, N. M., on the Fourth of July is a feet which is likely to cause a good many people to revise their ideas of the "Great American Desert” of which so much is heard in the East. Visitors at Santa Fe lake and to the top of the lake and Penltente peaks found snow cornices around the crest of the crater overlooking the lake basin which sloped off gently from the top, the outer edge of the snow breaking off abruptly in walls which ranged from 20 to 50 feet in height. There Is no doubt from the measurements of these snow precipices that the snowfall tn midwinter must have been 15 to 20 feet In places and that the peaks were clothed In a solid mass of snow from bottom to summit. There were still masses of snow scattered all round the lake which were still four or five feet high. But for the warm rains that come later, snow probably would lie in the basin from year’s end to year’s end. Despite the hot July sun, the air Is so cool at the peqk level, more than 12,000 feet above the sea, that the snow cornices melted very alowly.