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,