Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/408

 380 John Minto. Mountains in August, 1844. The same color and texture of soil, seemingly without humus, but which nevertheless will bear two months without rain better than the corn-lands of Iowa will two weeks. OREGON WINDS SOIL-MOVERS. The mention of the Wind River Mountains reminds me that we in Oregon are as different in the winds that blow as in the rains and snow that maintain the flow of our rivers, for we are free from their cyclones and downpours of eight inches of rain in eleven hours, as in the Appalachian Mountains, which I will notice after stating that warm or hot springs and vol- canic ashbeds are, together with mineral springs, common occurrences all over the Columbia Valley from the west slopes of the Cascade Range to the Rocky Mountains. The return trade-wind from the South Pacific is now called the ' ' Chinook. ' ' It is the wind of blessing in more ways than those connected with or concerned with the Appalachian chain can well conceive of. ''The early and the latter rains" it brings from the South Pacific Ocean; it is the prevailing winter wind over Oregon and Washington, and is the natural enemy of frost and snow in all the country west of the Cas- cade Range, so that snow to load the trees and whiten the ground on the plains is exceptional weather west of these mountains. The longest time that sleigh-riding could be indulged in, within the last sixty-four years, was in the winter of 1861-2, after the waters of the Willamette had receded from the highest flood known to the conquering race. We had seven weeks of sleighing at Salem; the livery stable men, in order to give the stock healthy exercise, hitched up all for which they had harness, and with a string of sleighs gave free rides to young and old. My wife and children were at Salem, my farm stock and feed four miles south. I already knew the sound of the moisture-laden wind coming over the cold strata next the earth, and I remember well with what pleasure I sought my bed when I distinctly heard the heavenly sound. It is to every Pacific Coast stockman a sound of de-