Texas Almanac, 1941-1942 Page: 154
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154 TEXAS ALMANAC -1941-42
Texas Memorial IMuseum at Austin may
be seen skulls of the very large bison or
buffalo of early time, of the elephant,
mastodon, sloth, dire wolf, mosasaur and
tracks of the dinosaurs. The fossil re-
mains are being assembled in several
other museums of the state and some are
going to museums elsewhere as the
American Museum, New York, and the
National Museum, Washington, D.C.
Collections of fish, mosasaurs, crabs
and lobsters have been made in Fannin
and Grayson Counties. In the older for-
mations extensive collections of large
animals have been made in Howard,
Crosby and Clay Counties. Dinosaur
tracks have been collected from the
Cretaceous in Bandera and Somervell
Counties. One of the novelties of collec-
tions made from San Patricio County is
a bird nest with two dozen or more
fossil eggs.
The West Texas State Teachers Col-lege has, during the past several years,
made extensive collections of the large
\land animals from several counties in the
High Plains Region of Texas. Collections
have been made also by Texas Techno-
logical College at Lubbock, Sul Ross
State Teachers College at Alpine and Col-
lege of Mines and Metallurgy at El Paso.
The fossils obtained as they are being
prepared have been placed in the state
museums such as the Texas Memorial
Museum at Austin and the museums at
the other institutions concerned.
If not collected, the fossils would for
the most part be destroyed by being
washed out of the ground and caused to
disintegrate. When collected and pre-
served, as is being done, they become a
part of the history of the state and, ex-
hibited in the museums, are available as
a part of the educational system of the
state and thus become useful for gener-
ations to come.Characteristics of Texas Weather.
A glance at the map of North America
will explain why diversity is an out-
standing characteristic of Texas weather.
Extending from the warm waters of the
Gulf of Mexico to the peaks and plateaus
of the Rocky Mountain system, Texas is
a land of conflicting meteorological
forces.
Texas weather varies as among its
natural regions, and there is likewise
considerable seasonal weather variation
in any single community. From the
Lower Rio Grande Valley to the Texas
Panhandle Plains, the mean annual tem-
perature ranges from 74 to 54 degrees.
The mean January temperature ranges
from 59 to 33 degrees. Thus, by going
from seacoast to interior and, at the
same time, climbing from sea level to
4,000 feet, Texas climate ranges from
subtropical to middle temperature, with-
in a range of ten degrees of latitude.
The variation in rainfall is even great-
er. Along the Sabine River, it averages
55 inches annually. At El Paso the aver-
age is 9.16 inches. These two great
ranges of rainfall and temperature, run-
ning at right angles to each other, cre-
ete a wide variety and gradation of
weather conditions. The odd shape of
Texas accentuates the effects of great
size and varied physiographic conditions.
Effects of Weather Diversity.
From the citrus groves of the Lower
Rio Grande Valley to the hard wheat
fields of the Panhandle, and from the
canebrakes of the lower Sabine Basin to
the yucca of the Diablo Plateau, Texas
presents strange contrasts in its native
and cultivated plant life. Not only do
climatic conditions produce a wide range
of crop and livestock products, but they
also have marked influence upon the
production of a single crop in many in-
stances. The wide range in temperature
is illustrated by the interesting fact that
the farmers of the southern tip of Texas
are sometimes planting their new cottoncrop before the farmers of the northern
end of the state have finished picking
the preceding season's crop; and, again,
the farmers of South Texas sometimes
begin picking the season's cotton crop
before the farmers of Northwest Texas
finish planting. Meteorological condi-
tions, combined with Texas' variety of
soils and physiographic conditions, give
Texas an almost unparalleled variety of
plant life, which is the basis of its eco-
nomic and social structure.
Texas Summers.
The midsummer months are warm
throughout Texas. However the region
along the Coast and the High Plains
Country find relief in either sea breezes
or the cooling effect of high altitude.
Fortunately, the two relatively dry sea-
sons throughout most of Texas come in
midsummer and midwinter, tempering
both heat and cold. The table showing
rainfall in Texas counties by months
gives the approximate graph of seasonal
precipitation in any section of the state
in which one may be interested.
West Texas Rainfall.
Texas west of the 100th meridian is
frequently represented as arid on com-
mercial maps. As a matter of fact some
of the most productive cotton, wheat,
corn and grain sorghum lands of the
state lie far west of this meridian. The
region west of the Pecos is too dry for
farming without irrigation, as is also
some of the southwestern portion of the
state east of the Pecos, but upper and
middle western portions of the state and
the region of the High Plains are excel-
lent dry farming country. While the rain-
fall in much of this territory is only about
twenty inches annually, its normal dis-
tribution is such that it is of maximum
benefit to growing crops. It is not the
average but the irregularity of rainfall
throughout most of Texas that causes
occasional severe crop damage. Most of
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Texas Almanac, 1941-1942, book, 1941; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117164/m1/156/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.