d with, or explained by, the
Huttonian or any other received theory of rain. Here again it is obvious
that evaporation alone, however great or long continued, will not furnish
the evaporating section with rain.

The northern portion of the continent lies beneath the zone of
extra-tropical rains, and north of the northern limit of the N. E.
trades--is never uncovered from it, and has no distinct rainy or dry
season, although more rain falls at certain periods, and in certain
localities, than at others. The climate of that part of Oregon which lies
upon the Pacific, and the character of its rains, resemble those of
North-western Europe, and will be further explained hereafter.

Coming to the portion of the continent which we occupy, the 5th section,
we find it different still--a most favored region. Portions of it--Eastern
Texas, for instance--are upon the same parallels of latitude as the
rainless regions of Northern Mexico, etc. Eastern Texas, however, is not
rainless. Other portions are upon the same parallels as California, etc.,
yet have no distinct rainy and dry season. We repeat, this section is a
most favored region--without a parallel upon any portion of the earth's
surface, except, in degree, in China and some other portions of Eastern
Asia.

It is not only without a distinct rainy and dry season, but it is watered
by an average, annually, of more than forty inches of rain, while Europe,
although bounded on three sides by seas and oceans, and apparently much
more favorably situated, receives annually an average of only about
twenty-five--if we except Norway, and one or two other places, where the
fall is excessive. The distribution of this supply of moisture over the
United States is, in other respects, wonderful. Iowa, in the interior of
the continent, far away from the great oceans, on the east or west, or the
Gulf of Mexico on the south, receives fifty inches; some ten or fifteen
inches more than fall upon the slope east of the Alleghanies, and
contiguous to the great Atlantic (from which all our storms are,
erroneously, supposed to be derived), and the average over the entire
great interior valley is about forty-five inches, falling at all seasons
of the year.

Observe, then, by way of recapitulation: Southern Mexico has a rainy
season furnished by the belt of _inter_-tropical rains, which _travels up
over it from the south_ in summer. California has a rainy season, which is
furnished by the _extra_-trop