SEASONS. 13 



With reference to the Palouse, it is a curious circumstance that the 

 explorers connected with the surveys for a north transcontinental 

 route in 185.'} and 1856 were determined to place the head waters of this 

 stream far enough east to reach the main range of the Bitter Roots. 

 It is so delineated on Governor Stevens's map accompanying his report. 

 Other surveys tried as persistently later on to find a short, cut by way 

 of the Palouse to the Missoula River. It appears to have been a slow 

 and difficult task to convince them that the great basin of the-St. 

 Joseph with the valley of its tributary, the St. Mary, intervened 

 between the head of the Palouse and the summit of the Bitter Boots. 

 The difficulty probably was due to failure to appreciate the true shape 

 of the peculiar inclosed basins in which the interior drainage of the 

 Cu'iir d'Alenes Hows. 



CLIMATE 



The most prominent feature of the climate of the region is its great 

 annual precipitation. Exactly how large this is for all portions of the 

 area we can not say. Meteorological data applying to the uninhabited 

 portions are unobtainable, and they comprise much the larger portion. 

 There are two well-marked periods during the year, a wet and a dry. 

 The dry is comparatively short, on an average not above ten weeks. The 

 wet includes the remainder of the year. The season's precipitation 

 usually commences with light showers in the middle of September. 

 Above elevations of about 1,000 meters (5,250 feet) these showers are 

 snowstorms in part, but the snow does not remain long. After the 

 first showers there is usually a short interval of dry weather. In the 

 early part of October the rains begin again, increasing in frequency 

 and duration until December is reached, when a storm may last, as it 

 often does, twenty to thirty days, during which time either rain or snow 

 falls incessantly. With the October showers the snow line creeps down 

 rapidly, and in December usually becomes permanent at the lowest 

 levels of the region. 



The coldest weather of the season is experienced mostly in the early 

 and middle portions of January, and is pretty sure to be followed soon 

 after by the heaviest snowfall of the winter, considering its duration. 

 This snowfall is often succeeded by a ''chinook,''a warm southerly wind, 

 which may melt the accumulations of the lowlands wholly or in part. 

 With this the spring commences. This season is often of great length. 

 Rain and snow, freeze and thaw, alternate every few days, very often 

 until the middle of May. There is then a season of dry weather until 

 the middle of June, when a rainy period of two or three weeks sets in. 

 After this has passed dry weather prevails until the fall rains begin. 



The precipitation is not equally distributed over the whole region. 

 Certain places receive far more snow and rain than others, even though 

 they are at the same level. The upper portion of the St. Mary and 

 St. Joseph basins and the western areas of the North Fork basin 

 appear to receive more than any other, with the exception of some 



