ed, doubtless are, just as favorable, if
not more so, than is that of Minnesota, but they are lacking either in
facilities for reaching them, or in the needed comforts, and perhaps in
the commonest necessities which are absolute in all cases,--a wholesome
diet being one of the great essentials to recuperation.

Minnesota affords, of course, all of these aids in large abundance, and
is likewise quite easy of access, thus answering, in these particulars
at least, the ends desired.

It may now be well to examine the chief characteristics belonging to
this central climatic division, on the northeastern edge of which lies
the State under special consideration. We have already observed that the
prevailing and prominent winds of the continent blow uniformly from the
Pacific toward the Atlantic coast, having a slight northerly tendency.
It is important that this fact be kept in mind. This wind is constantly
sweeping across the North Pacific Ocean, by which it is tempered and
ladened with a vast amount of moisture, which is borne to the shores of
the continent, and, but for the elevated mountain ranges along the whole
of that coast, would be quite evenly distributed over the interior,
giving to all of the western and central area such an abundance of
fertilizing rains as the western half of the continent of Europe now
possesses, and to which this would then be in climate almost an exact
counterpart. But instead we have only a slender breadth of territory
answering to the oceanic climate of Western Europe, embracing that which
lies between the Pacific shores and the Sierra and Rocky Mountain
ranges. Within this belt is precipitated nearly all of the moisture
contained in the atmosphere. The warm, humid westerly winds, driven
against the lofty and cool mountain sides, have their moisture suddenly
and rapidly condensed, and the rain-fall on their western slope is found
by measurement to be prodigious, reaching as high as sixty-five cubic
inches for the year, being equal in quantity to that falling in many
tropical districts, and greatly exceeding that of any other portion of
the United States. These mountains have a determining influence on the
climate, both of the coast and of that in the interior. They act on the
clouds as they sweep against and over them, like a comb, extracting all
possible moisture, leaving a cool, elastic, and arid continental
atmosphere for this central area under present review. The effect is at
once prono