Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 by Various
page 36 of 313 (11%)
page 36 of 313 (11%)
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better fitting Texas for the white man and the white man's labor.
With this freedom from violent storms comes the delicious southerly wind in the summer, which gives health and moisture to the larger part of Texas. This wind varies in the point from which it flows. From Sabine to Matagorda its course is from south-east to south-south-east, growing more and more to the south as the coast tends to the south, until at the Rio Grande it blows from due south with perhaps a little westing in it. The course of this wind will explain the three belts of Texas, the rainy, that of less rain, and that of great drought. This wind from the south-east corner from across the ocean and gulf (being a continuation of the south-east trades) laden with moisture and of a delightful temperature, when it is met by the cool air from the mountains, and condensed, giving the rains of Eastern and Central Texas. The more southing they have in them, the less moisture, until the extreme south-eastern portion of Texas, or the country near the mouth of the Rio Grande, is one of almost constant drought. There are thus three belts of moisture: first, from the Sabine to the mouth of the Brazos, may be called the belt of greatest rain,--from the Brazos to Lavaca or Victoria, that of moderate rain,--and from Lavaca to the Rio Grande, the dry belt. But even in the dry belt there is moisture enough to give fine grasses, and make the country a fine one for grazing, and the streams taking their rise in great springs, which probably have their source in the melting snows of the Rocky Mountains, flowing under the Llano Estacado and breaking out in great numbers in a line almost north and south, never dry up, even in the dryest seasons. |
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