The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1897-04-23
CLIMATIC EXTREMES.
PARTS OF THE COUNTRY WITH ONE
REGULARITY OR ANOTHER.

The Yellowstone Has the Greatest Range
of Temperature-Death Valley the Hot
test Place-Where 1t Rains Every Day.
Over the Hill From Winter to Summer.
1 have run about the United States a
good deal for the last 80 years and have
made memory notes of such climatic
peculiarities as have come under my OBJ
servation.
The place having the widest range of
temperature of any with which 1 am
familiar is Fort Keogh, i'll the Yellow
stone valley. Not infrequently III the
winter the mercury tumbles down to SO
degrees below zero, and it has been
known in summer to climb up to 1870
degrees above. Here is an extreme range
of ITO degrees, and yet people manage
to live very comfortably there the year
round. In the early summer the grass
on the plains and hills turns brown and
yellow, and all green yanishes from the
wide landscape except where fringe
of cottonwood trees skirts a water course
It is a popularity of the extreme high
temperature in the arid regions that you
do not perspire at all-that is, you do
not sensibly perspire. The moisture is
all evaporated from your skin as fast as
it is formed by the extreme dryness of
the air. The heat is not nearly so op-
pressive, however, as it is at tempera-
ture of 80 or 80 degrees along the At
lantic seaboard. If you are indoors or
under the shade of a tree, you are quite
comfortable.
Anything that will break the fierce
rays of the sun is sufficient to relieve
you from all oppression from the high
temperature. Travelling some years ago
across the hot, billowy plain of the great
basin of the Columbia with a camping
party looking up a route for a railroad,
we came to a huge columnar rock of
black basalt The day was intensely hot.
We stopped the teams, and, throwing
ourselves down on the shady side Of the
rock, we recalled the phrase i'll the Bible
about ''the shadow Of great rock in q
weary land'' and realized that little
shade meant as much to the people of
arid Palestine as to us tired travellers in
arid America
The hottest place i'll the United States
is unquestionably Death valley, in
southern California. It is about 200 feet
below the sea level and is trimmed
around with black, bare mountains
Birds flying across this valley in the
heated season often drop dead. Borax
is found here, but the mining processes
cease in the heat of midsummer. read
somewhere Of a party of men who en-
tered the valley in July, knowing moth
ing of the deadly heat, and who pre-
served their lives by lying all day in the
water of a little stream that came out of
the mountains and was soon dried up in
the fierce rays of the sun. They were
glad to escape under the cooling shades
Of night.
The rainiest place in the United States
is Neah bay, on the strait Of Fuca, in
the state of Washington. 1t actually
rains every day i'll the year, and the
total annual precipitation is nearly 100
inches. There is an Indian reservation
on the bay. The natives have very
pretty knack of making ornamental
basins and carving wooden bowls, which
they decorate with high colors.
The most remarkable climatic barrier
in the United States is that of the Cas-
cade mountains, in Washington. In Win
ter time the railway train tolls up the
eastern slope Of these mountains between
walls Of snow higher than the roofs of
the cars in a long winding lane scooped
out by the rotary plow. Once through
the tunnel on the Northern Pacific, or
over the switchback on the Great North
ern, you suddenly leave winter behind
you, and, whirling down the western
slope of the mountains, in less than an
hour you meet the full spring. The grass
is green, waterfowl swim OH the rivers
and bays, the crows are holding their
annual conventions in the tree tops with
much oratorical clamor, and when you
arrive at Tacoma you find the flowers
blooming in the dooryards. The change
seems magical and is as great as if you
should start from Chicago in January
and travel to the gulf of Mexico, yet the
whole distance you have traversed to
bring about this wonderful transforma-
tion is less than 100 miles
The most peculiar climatic region
with which am familiar is the Puget
sound basin, in the state Of Washington.
It is separated from the ocean Oh the
west by the rugged snow clad range Of
the Olympic mountains, and it's eastern
boundary is the still loftier range Of the
Cascades. The sound is connected with
! the Pacific by the broad strait of Juan
de Fuca, and up this strait pours great
volume of moist air, brought by the
Japan current from far out to sea. The
mountains Of Vancouver island on one
side and the Olympics on the other make
Of the strait an enormous funnel, and
| the moisture laden winds are condensed
against the cold, snowy ranges on either
hand and are precipitated i'll frequent
showers upon the shores of the sound.
It rarely SHOWS there, but it rains a lit
tie almost every day from October to
June. The result is to produce dense
vegetable growth in the forest consisting
of immense trees-frs, hemlocks, spruces
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