Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1906-11-30
SALT FROM THE CLOUDS.
Saline showers Are Peculiar to Uts
and Wyoming.


and Wyoming.
One OF the curious phenomena of
Utah and Wyoming is an occasional
rainfall OF salt water. Recently there
was reported TO the weather bureau an
instance of rainfall of this sort
throughout 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 II 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 were rendered
for the time opaque.
According to this report, the whole
town OF Evanston looked as IL It had
been wbitewashed. When the sky
cleared the roofs gllstened in the sun
as IL with frozen snow. The weather
bureau man estimated that In the town
OF Evanston an amount OF salt equlva-
lent to twenty-eight 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
new one. The wind was from the
west, and all the rains that are Inn
pregnatcd 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. un-
der favorable conditions. a consider
able quantity of salt may be taken I'D
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 IL is regarded as a somewhat
remarkable fact that so great q quan-
tity Of salt should have been borne so
far.
There is. however, another opportuni-
fy than that presented by the Great
Salt lake itself for the impregnatlon 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
the water has literally turned to salt.
Compared with Mono lake or Owens
lake the waters of Great Salt lake
seem limpld. Owens lake In a sense
supplies showers of soda water instead
OF salt water, for its waters, In addi-
ton TO being salt, are the most strong
ly impregnated with soda OF any lacus-
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 120,OOO,OOO tons.
So common is salt in some form In
the closed basins OF the west that
peaks and hills of salt, liz those which
line the slopes of De a valley. are
anything but rare. Her, and there fine
salt Is driven before the wind like
drifting snow in certain desert depres-
sions.
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 sodi-
UNI chloride have been found I'm the
rainwater. In England and ireland
-eoatings of fine salt have been found
on the trees many miles inland after
a heavy rain from the sea, and show
ers no less saline than that of Evan
sion have fallen in the neighborhood OF
the Caspian sea.-Chlcago Inter Ocean.