degrees, unbroken by thaws except under the occasional warm glare of a
noonday sun--usually keeps this thin covering on the ground all winter
so dry, that the deerskin moccasins, which many persons habitually wear,
are scarcely moistened the season through. There are occasional upward
oscillations of temperature; and, once in a series of years, a thaw in
January or February; but these are rare occurrences. Rain has not fallen
in winter but once in many years. The whole winter is a radiant and
joyous band of sunny days and starlight nights. This inaugurates the
carnival season when sleighing and merrymaking parties in both town and
country form one unbroken round of pleasure."

The advantages of this winter season is that, while a cold climate, it
still admits of the invalid taking constant daily exercise with an
entire freedom from liability to "catch cold," the system freed from
sudden shocks incident to the coquetting climate of the East; the lungs
and whole body strengthened and braced by the tonic effect of this
continental climate.

"It is the most normal climate on the continent. No other is so
exquisitely symmetrical in its entire annual development. In no other
are the transitions of temperature and moisture so completely in harmony
with nature, so accommodated to the laws of organic life and growth.
Thus the entire physical organism of Minnesota is, so to speak,
emblematical of the * * * relations which attach to its geographical
position."

The advance of spring does not, here, bring those unending floods and
winds which drown men out and blow the universe to tatters, as is the
case in New England and other areas lying eastward.