The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-09-26
SALT RAIN.
Tho Kind That Sometimes Falls n
Utah and Wyoming.
showers Of Soda Water Also Occur b
the Same Reglon-Salt . CO0-
mon Article In the West
ern Desert

One Of the curious phenomena Of
Utah and Wyoming is an occasional
rainfall OF salt water. Recently there
was reported. throughout . belt OF coun-
try extending from Ogden, Utah, to
Evanston, Wye, . shower Of rain sc
strongly impregnated with salt that
the clothes Of persons upon whom it fell
were, when dried, thinly crusted with
q white powder, which was nothing but
white with it and Panes Of glass in the
windows were rendered for the time
opaque.
According to a local account, the
whole town of Evanston looked as if il
had been white washed. When the sky
cleared, the roofs glistened in the sun
as if with frozen snow. A local man of
science estimated that In the town Of
Evanston an amount of salt equivalent
to IS tons had fallen.
The shower lasted about two hours,
and during all this time the rain which
fell was saline.
This phenomenon is far from being a
new one. The wind was from the west,
and all the rains which are impregrated
with salt, in that region, come from that
quarter. The cause Of them is not hard
to find. It is simply the great Salt lake
Of Utah-that vast body of intensely salt
water, out of which, under favorable
conditions, a considerable quantity Of
salt may be taken up into the atmos-
phere, to be precipitated later upon the
surrounding country.
Evanston Is about IS miles from the
nearest waters of Great Salt lake. and
it is regarded as somewhat remarkable
that 80 great quantity of salt should
have been borne so far.
There is, however, ether opportunity
than that presented by the Great Salt
lake itself for the impregnation of the
air with salt in the central basin. There
are countless depressions all through
the vast region between the Rocky and
Sierra Nevada mountains. which are
nothing less than Great Salt lakes now
dried up. Great Salt lake itself is be-
coming more and more salt from year to
year, the same process has taken place
in other depressions until the water has
literally turned to salt.
Compared with Mono lake, or Owens
lake, the waters of Great Salt lake seem
limpid. Owens lake, in sense, supplies
showers of soda water instead of salt
water: for its waters, in addition to be-
ing salt. are the most strongly impreg-
mated with soda of any lacustripe basin
in the United States. 1t is estimated
that the quantity of soda deposited in
the basin of Ovens lake is no less than
22O, O00, 600 Of tonsl
So common is salt in some form, in the
closed basins of the west. that peaks and
hills of salt, like those which line the
slopes of Death Valley, are not rare.
Here and there fine salt is driven before
the wind like drifting snow in certain
desert depressions.
The United States is not the only
country in which salt showers occur. In
Paris itself, when rains straight from
the Atlantic have been borne so far in
ward, percsptible quantities Of sodium
chloride have been found in the rain
water. In England and Ireland coat
ings of fine salt have been found on the
trees many miles inland after heavy
rain from the sea; and showers no less
saline than that of Evanston have fallen
in tho neishborhood OF the Caspian sea
Youths Companion.