ical
position."

The advance of spring does not, here, bring those unending floods and
winds which drown men out and blow the universe to tatters, as is the
case in New England and other areas lying eastward.

The months of March and April rack very low in their rain-fall in
comparison with any point situated along the same thermal lines; while
May is scarce up to the average, but yet sufficient to supply the seeds
and grasses with all the moisture required.

For the purpose of exactness the following table is annexed, giving a
view of the question and illustrating it far better than any discussion
can hope to do.

_Mean Water Precipitation For Spring (in inches)_

PLACES. MARCH. APRIL. MAY. TOTAL

St. Paul 1.30 2.14 3.17 6.61
Utica 2.75 3.17 3.34 9.26
Providence 3.26 3.66 3.53 10.45

This furnishes a most striking commentary on this particular season for
the localities named, and warrants the statement that the first
two-thirds of it can be considered a continuation of the dry climate
which we have now traced from about the middle of September to the first
of May, a period of seven and one-half months, in which the rain-fall is
but a third of the entire quantity precipitated throughout the whole
year; while that of the entire year, even, is seen to be but a trifle
over the half of that falling over any portion of the variable district,
occupying so large a portion of the whole United States.

It is an astonishing development, and would be scarcely credible, but
for the array of actual facts and figures, through a long series of
years, by persons entirely unbiased, and who in the employment of the
general government had no other ends to serve but that of accuracy.
Previous favorable reports had gained much reputation for the State, but
it seemed to lack official backing, until the searching in the published
files of the War Department set the topic at rest, and proved the
climate of this State out of that division to which the great valley of
the Mississippi had been assigned, and to which the State of Minnesota
had been thought, heretofore, to belong.

The great isothermal lines, beginning along the Atlantic coast at the
fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second latitudes--with their initial
points between Long Island and the northern boundary line of
Massachusetts--