, 1896-08-29
A RAIN OF SALT.
Like a Coat of Whitewash From the
Overhead Skies.

One of the curious phenomena of
Utah and Wyoming is an occasional
rainfall Of salt water. Recently there
VAS rCpCr'Gd throughout n belt OF
| country extending from Ogden. Utah.
to Evanston, Wyo.. a shower of rain
| so strongly im~pregnated with salt that
the clothes Of persons upon whom it
fell were, when dried. thinly crusted
with a white powder, which was moth
ing but common salt. Umbrellas were
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 it
had been whitewashed. When the sky
cleared the roofs glistened in the SUI
as if with frozen snow. A local man
of science estimated that in the City
of Eevanston an amount of salt equiv
alent to 2S tons had fallen.
The shower lasted about two hours,
and during thai 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 i%mpregnat-
ed with salt in that region come from
that quarter. The cause of them is not
hard to find. 1t is simply the Great
Salt lake of Utah-that vast body Of
intensely salt water, out of which. un-
favorable conditions, a considerable
quantity of salt may be taken up into
the atmosphere, to be precipitated later
upon the surrounding country.
Evanston is about fifty-five miles
from the nearest waters Of Great Salt
lake, and it is regarded as somewhat
remarkable that so great a quantity
of salt should have been borne SO far.
There is, however. other opportunity
than that presented by Great Salt lake
itself for the impregnation of the air
with salt in the Central Basin. There
are coutless depression 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 depresisons until the wa
ter has literally turned to salt.
Compared with Mono lake. or Owens
II, Ea tho wa tor of Erea. Salt lake seems
limpid. Owens lake. in a sense, sup
| plies showers OF soda water instead Of
| salt water; for its waters, in addition
to being salt, are the most strongly
im~pregnated with soda Of any hcus-
trine basin in the United States. 1t is
estimated that the quantity OF soda
deposited in the basin Of Owens lake
is no less than 800, 600, 900 tons!
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 inward, %perceptible quantities of
sodium chloride have been found in
the rain water. In England and Ire
land coatings OF fine salt have been
found on the trees many miles inland
after a heavy rain from the sea; and
showers no less saline than that OF
Evanston have fallen in the neighbor-
hood Of the Caspian sea.