Page:Atlantis Arisen.djvu/94

 of the soil really inexhaustible,—its alkaline properties supplying the place of many expensive manures. And yet the capacity of the plains for cultivation has only just begun to be comprehended. East Washington has a greater area of lands which can be rendered productive by irrigation than East Oregon, but the area is large in both of the States.

The hill-tops in transmontane Oregon may be sown to grain and safely left to the encouragement of the soil and the elements, the former having more clay in it than the lower bench lands, and the atmosphere, perhaps, at night a little more moisture. At all events, good crops are harvested on this higher ground without irrigation. Although in imagination we behold this country as it will appear in the happy future, in the very present hour the tourist is bound to prefer the western division, which is already brought to perfection in so many particulars by the deft hand of nature.

All that has been said of Oregon climate, soil, and seasons applies equally to Washington, except where some local cause exists for a difference. For instance, there is a greater rain-fall at the mouth of the Columbia than at Gray’s Harbor, or other points along the coast, until you come to Neah Bay, at the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the cause of the excess of moisture being the same in both instances,—namely, a wide opening in the coast-line, through which the storm-winds are drawn as through a funnel. There is much less rain among the islands in the archipelago at the foot of Puget Sound and along the northern coast of the mainland of Washington than in the southern counties, which are affected by the climate of the Lower Columbia. The mean annual precipitation at Olympia is 56.27 inches, and at Portland 50.89 inches. The temperature of the Puget Sound country is very slightly affected by latitude. The mean temperature of Portland in Oregon for the month of December varies from 48° to 43°, although, in an exceptional year, it has been as low as 31°, and in January, 1888, the mercury fell to 2° below zero. There is a difference of about two degrees, mean temperature, lower, between Portland and Olympia, at the head of Puget Sound, and two or three degrees more at Tacoma and points farther north.

The lowest temperature for the last five years at Portland