208 ESSA VS. *h* 



could give none to the heated plains below. So the broad in- 

 terior of our country is forestless from dryness in our latitude, 

 as the high northern zone is forestless from cold. 



Regions with distributed rain are naturally forest-clad. 

 Regions with scanty rain, and at one season, are forestless or 

 sparsely wooded, except they have some favoring compensa- 

 tions. Rainless regions are desert. 



The Atlantic United States in the zone of variable weather 

 and distributed rains, and the Gulf of Mexico as a caldron 

 for brewing rain, and no continental expanse between that 

 great caldron and the Pacific, crossed by a prevalent south- 

 west wind in summer, is greatly favored for summer as well 

 as winter rain. 



And so this forest region of ours, with an annual rainfall 

 of fifty inches on the lower Mississippi, fifty-two inches in all 

 the country east of it bordering the Gulf of Mexico, forty- 

 five to forty-one in all the proper Atlantic district from east 

 Florida to Maine and the whole region drained by the Ohio, 

 — diminished only to thirty-four inches on the whole upper 

 Mississippi and Great Lake region, — with this amount of 

 rain, fairly distributed over the year, and the greater part not 

 in the winter, our forest is well accounted for. 



The narrow district occupied by the Pacific forest has a 

 much more unequal rainfall, — more unequal in its different 

 parts, most unequal in the different seasons of the year, very 

 different in the same place in different years. 



From the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the 

 amount of rain decreases moderately and rather regularly 

 from south to north ; but, as less is needed in a cold climate, 

 there is enough to nourish forest throughout. On the Pacific 

 coast, from the Gulf of California to Puget Sound, the south- 

 erly third has almost no rain at all ; the middle portion has 

 less than our Atlantic least ; the northern third has about our 

 Atlantic average. 



Then, New England has about the same amount of rainfall 

 in winter and in summer ; Florida and Alabama about one 

 half more in the three summer than in the three winter 

 months, — a fai»ly equable distribution. But on the Pacific 



