Mean Water Precipitation For Spring (in inches)

  PLACES.  MARCH.  APRIL.  MAY.  TOTAL

St. Paul                   1.30       2.14      3.17       6.61
Utica                      2.75       3.17      3.34       9.26
Providence                 3.26       3.66      3.53      10.45

This furnishes a most striking commentary on this particular season for the localities named, and warrants the statement that the first two-thirds of it can be considered a continuation of the dry climate which we have now traced from about the middle of September to the first of May, a period of seven and one-half months, in which the rain-fall is but a third of the entire quantity precipitated throughout the whole year; while that of the entire year, even, is seen to be but a trifle over the half of that falling over any portion of the variable district, occupying so large a portion of the whole United States.

It is an astonishing development, and would be scarcely credible, but for the array of actual facts and figures, through a long series of years, by persons entirely unbiased, and who in the employment of the general government had no other ends to serve but that of accuracy.  Previous favorable reports had gained much reputation for the State, but it seemed to lack official backing, until the searching in the published files of the War Department set the topic at rest, and proved the climate of this State out of that division to which the great valley of the Mississippi had been assigned, and to which the State of Minnesota had been thought, heretofore, to belong.

The great isothermal lines, beginning along the Atlantic coast at the fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second latitudes—­with their initial points between Long Island and the northern boundary line of Massachusetts—­sweep westward with an upward tendency, striking Minnesota at the forty-fifth parallel (St. Paul), when a sharp curve to the north distinguishes their course, thence bearing away gradually westward along the valleys of the Red and Saskatchawan Rivers to the Pacific Ocean.

If there are any doubts by our readers as to the continental character of the climate of Minnesota, let them answer how it is that this sharp curve of the thermal line happens in its westward course just on the frontier of that State.  And likewise the reason of the arid climate prevailing for nearly three-fourths of the year, so unlike that for a thousand miles eastward or southward of it.

Two-thirds of the entire fall of water for the year (whether snow or rain) descends during the summer, with the addition of a part of May and September.  The quantity is a trifle over that in parts of Michigan, while much less than the average of all points east or south.  With regard to that of Central New York at Utica, a type of the eastern area, and previously referred to—­it is two inches less.  Thus the summer, while not a dry one, fortunately, is below the mean of the variable district.