RAIN. 455 



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 sea- 

 son. 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 inches, if we except Norway and 

 one or two other places, where the fall is excessive. The distribu- 

 tion 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 fif'y inches some ten or fifteen inches 

 more than fall upon the slopes east of the Alleghanies, and contigu- 

 ous 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." 



On the views of the combating theorists as to the particu- 

 lar oceanic origin of the waters falling on these mountains, 

 there might be an interesting critique. 



While Maury and Redfield contend that our southwest 

 currents, with their freight of moisture, come from the Pa- 

 cific Ocean, Butler assumes that they come from the South 

 Atlantic, and Espy and the school of Huttonians generally 

 talk of the warm streams of moisture from the North and 

 East Atlantic Ocean, the forty-five annual inches of water 

 do actually fall upon the United States, minus ten inches on 

 the Alleghany heights, on the authority of Mr. Blodget. At 

 the same time we have seen, from the authority of other 

 meteorologists, that mountain ranges catch, condense, and 

 precipitate, controlling and modifying the whole supply of 

 water to those portions of the earth. 



From Butler we have the following statements : 



"Everywhere currents passing from the ocean, over mountain 

 ranges, part with a large share of their moisture." 



