CLIMATE OF KANSAS. 473 



wliii'led by us a very short time before. If we reject the cyclone theory 

 we must suppose parallel but opposite currents, in streaks, thus : 



On loth July last I witnessed a fine example of this sudden chauge 

 of direction and temperature in the wind. A storm arose, with light- 

 ning in the west, the southwest, and the northwest. The railways train 

 was going eastward at the distance of about three hundred and twenty- 

 five miles west from Kansas City. We were soon enveloped in the 

 storm, rain, and wind so strong from the north that the wheels of the 

 coaches could be felt grating their flanges on the south rail, aud the 

 rain, striking the end windows of the car, ran across in a true horizon- 

 tal line. In a few minutes the temperature had fallen so low as to be 

 uncomfortable ; but in a run of not, I think, over ten miles, we were 

 again in the loarm winds usual at that season, and these, by contrast, 

 seemed to be the hot winds sometimes experienced. 



These hot winds are not, so far as I have observed, apt to be constant 

 in one place for any considerable length of time ; they strike your face 

 suddenly, and in perhaps a minute are gone. They seem to run along 

 in streaks, or ovenfulls, with the winds of ordinary (but rather high) 

 temperature. They do not begin, I believe, till in July, as a general 

 rule, and are over by September 1, or perhaps by August 15. Their 

 origin I take to be, of course, in heated regions south or southwest of 

 us ; but their peculiar occurrence, so capricious and often so brief, I 

 cannot explain to myself satisfactorily. 



I have no rain-gauge record at hand for this and past seasons; but I 

 may remark that this season, since about 15th of July, in these distant 

 plains, has given us rain enough to make beautifully verdant the spots 

 in the prairie burned off during the " heated term " of July. From Kit 

 Carson eastward the rains have been, I think, exceptionally abundant. 

 All through the summer we have had dew occasionally ; and it has been 

 remarked that buffalo meat has been more difficult of preservation than 

 heretofore ; facts indicative of humitlity in the atmosphere, even when 

 but little rain-fall was witnessed. Turnips sown in August would have 

 made a crop, without irrigation, in this vicinity, four hundred and twen- 

 ty-two miles west of the State line of Missouri, and about three thou- 

 sand two hundred feet above the sea-level. 



Facts such as these seem to sustain the pojiular persuasion in Kansas, 

 that a climatic change is taking place, promoted by the spread of settle- 

 ments westwardly ; breaking up portions of the prairie-soil ; covering 

 the earth with plants that shade the ground more than the short grasses, 



