Milford chronicle., 1906-12-14
SALT FROM The CLOUDS.
Saline showers Are Peculiar 80 Utah
and wyoming.

Saline showers Are Peculiar so Utah
and wyoming.
One of the curious phenomena OF
Utah and Wyoming 10 an occasional
rainfall Of salt water. Recently there
was reported to the weather bureau an
instance of a rainfall Of this sort
throughout a belt of country extending
from Ogden. Utah, to Evanston, Wyo.
This shower of rain was so strongly
impregnated with salt that the clothes
of persons upon whom it fell were,
when dried, thinly crusted with a
white powder, which was nothing
more than common salt. Umbrellas
were quite white with it. and panes Of
glass in the windows We're rendered
for the time Opaque.
/ According to this report, the whole
I town of Evanston looked as if it had
been whitewashed When the sky
cleared the roofs gistened in the sun
as if with frozen snow. The weather
bureau man estimated that in the town
of Evanston an amount of salt equiya-
lent to twenty-eight tons had fallen.
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, aud all the rains that are i'm
pregnated with salt in that region
come from that quarter. The cause is
not hard to find. 1t is simply the Great
Salt lake OF Utah, that vast body OF
intensely salt water out Of which, I'M
der favorable conditions, a consider
able 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 a somewhat
remarkable fact that so great guam
tity of salt should have been borne so !
far
There is, however, another opportuni-
ty 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 dried up. Great Salt lake itself
Is becoming more and more salt from
year to year. The same process has
taken place in other depressiOns until
he water has literally turned to salt
Compared with Mono lake or Owens
AXE the waters of Great Salt lake
eem limpid Owens lake in a sense
upplies showers of soda water instead
f salt water, for its waters, in addi-
ion to being salt, are the most strong
y impregnated with soda Of any lacus-
rine basin in the United States. 1t is
stimated that the quantity of soda e
epOsted in the basin of Owens lake
) no less than 12O,OOOOOO tons.
So common is salt in some form in
le closed basins Of the west that
eaks and hills Of salt. like those which
Ne the slopes Of Death valley, are
iything but rare. Here and there fine :.
1T is driven before the wind like =
1ftng saow in certain desert depres-
Jus. n
The United States is not the only
untry in which salt showers occur.
Paris Itself, when rains straight from
q Atlantic have been borne so far
ward. perceptible quantities of sodi-
y chloride have been found in the ii
inwater. In England and Ireland
atin@s Of fine salt have been found "
the trees many miles inland after
heavy rain FROM the sea, and show
no less saline than that Of Evan -
IN have fallen in the neghbOrhood of
Caspian sea.-Chicago Inter Ocean. =