days in this part of Oregon are not more numerous than in the Atlantic States; but the rainy days are, because all the storms here are rain, with rare exceptions. The autumn rains commence, usually, in November,—sometimes not till December,—and the wet season continues until April, or possibly till May; not without interruptions, however, oftentimes of a month, in midwinter, of bright weather. About the middle of June the Columbia River is high, and during the flood there are generally frequent flying showers. After the flood is abated, there is seldom any rain until September, when showers commence again, and prove very welcome, after the long, warm, but wholly delightful summer. The annual rain-fall of the Wallamet Valley ranges from thirty-five to fifty inches. In the Umpqua and Rogue River Valleys it is less; and at the mouth of the Columbia, and along the coast, both north and south, it is more. The mean annual temperature of Western Oregon is 52.4°, although in certain localities the average is higher by one or two degrees.
East of the Cascades the arrangement of the seasons is somewhat different. There is much less rain, which comes in showers rather than in a steady fall, and is confined to the months between September and June. Occasionally snow falls to the depth of a few inches, and in some winters to a considerable depth, and has remained on the ground a number of weeks. The heat of summer and the cold of winter are each more extreme, but not at their highest or lowest degrees so trying as the same amount of heat or cold would be in a moister atmosphere. The autumn months in this portion of the country are most delightful, with the thermometer ranging from fifty-five degrees to seventy. The phenomenon of the plains is the periodical warm wind which comes ever the Cascades from the Japan current, known as the "Chinook wind," and so named by the Indians because it came from the direction of the Chinook tribe, with whom they exchanged articles of barter in a sort of annual fair held at the mountain-pass, beyond which they never intruded on each other's territory. This warm air-current has a surprising evaporating quality, licking up several inches of snow in a single night, leaving the ground bare and the temperature mild. It is welcomed by the white stock-raiser,
