Black and white photograph of man, James Edward Church, standing in snow with snowshoes hanging around his neck
UNR Classics Professor James Edward Church, Jr., ca. 1920

James Edward Church Papers

This collection contains the papers, notebooks, and photographs of James Edward Church, who was a professor of Classics at the University of Nevada, Reno, and the man known as the “father of snow science.” Church developed the Mt. Rose snow sampler to accurately measure the water content of snow. In 1935, Congress created the Federal-States Co-Operative Snow Survey based on Church’s method; it continues to be used today.

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