peaceful conditions again, these ships are returning. The empty cars that formerly came for lumber are coming loaded with merchandise, in constantly greater numbers, and their contents are going more and more to form the cargoes of the ships. The railroad company that can fill its cars both ways can afford to carry for less money than the company that has full cars one way only. It is possible to fill the California cars but the one way; the Puget Sound cars will be filled both ways. Having this advantage, freight can be carried in them for 60 per cent. of the cost of similar service on the southern roads. The freight exchange of ship and car must be on the shores of Puget Sound. In saying this, nothing invidious or derogatory is intended. San Francisco is a great city, and will be greater. It has vast trade, and will have vaster. But it cannot have all; it cannot overcome the advantages of Puget Sound. Here will be a mart of commerce ere long fully equal to that, and in time second to none in the world. The New York of the Pacific, a decade hence, will be on Puget Sound. People will wonder then how it ever was otherwise, and we ourselves will wonder at the length of time it took to learn and demonstrate what at that time will be proven in a hundred ways and be as clear as the light of day.

THE CLIMATE OF WASHINGTON.

With the greatest diversity of physical features, Washington affords the greatest diversity of climate; yet without great extremes of heat and cold, and with absolute immunity from those destructive storms known as cyclones and tornadoes.

So great is the diversity in topography that there are several localities having distinctly different climates. When we consider the climates of Puget Sound and the Walla Walla country we find them to be widely different in many or nearly all of the meteorological elements. Also the Spokane country, the Big Bend country, the Yakima country, and the Klickitat country, all differ in some climatic features from the Walla Walla country, and, moreover, all differ from each other. The Puget Sound country has a different climate from the Coast district, and, at the same time, the Puget Sound region may be divided into districts which have widely diverse climatic characteristics. Therefore, it is very difficult to generalize about the climate of Washington without being inaccurate.

Only one broad generalization can be safely made: Nature's barrier, the Cascade mountain chain, separates the State into two divisions more widely different in climatic features than are any two adjacent states of the American Union. The one, on

the west of the barrier, may be considered as having a moist climate, and, in many respects, a marine one; the other, east of the barrier, as having a dry climate, and essentially a continental one, though unquestionably modified by storms and air currents from the ocean. But these two divisions may properly be subdivided; the western section has two regions, one moist, and the other wet, or very wet, while the eastern section has also two regions, the dry, and the very dry, or semi-arid.

PRECIPITATION DISTRICTS.

The wet district lies between the ocean and the coast range, or Olympic mountains; the moist district between the coast range

ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE, WASH

and the Cascade mountains; the dry district occupies the eastern and northern portions of the State; while the very dry, or semiarid, district occupies the great plain of the Columbia, or the central part of the State east of the Cascades. The wet district has a rainfall of 60 to 100 inches annually, 75 per cent. of which occurs during a wet season from November to April, inclusive; the moist district has a rainfall of 25 to 60 inches, annually; the dry district has an annual precipitation of 12 to 25 inches; and the semi arid district has an annual precipitation of less than 12 inches.

A failure to discriminate in the above manner has caused Washington climate to be absurdly misconceived in the minds. of many people, who, having read of the heavy rainfall at Neah Bay and Clearwater, have concluded that the whole State was favored with deluges of water; or, on the other hand, having read of the irrigation projects of the Yakima country, have Jumped at the conclusion that all of the State was arid or semiarid. The truth is that the rainfall of the Puget Sound district is not greater than that of the Ohio valley, and that of the southeast counties is about equal to that of South Dakota or Minnesota.

In the wet district are included the counties of Wahkiakum, Pacific, Chehalis, Mason, and the western halves of Jefferson and Clallam. In the moist district are included the counties of Whatcom, Skagit, Snohomish, San Juan, Island, King, Kıtsap, Pierce, Thurston, Lewis, Cowlitz, Skamania, and the eastern halves of Jefferson and Clallam. In the dry district are included the counties of Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield, Asotin, Whitman, Spokane, Stevens, Ferry, Chelan, the greater part of Lincoln, the eastern half of Adams, the western half of Klickitat, the western third of Yakima, the western half of Kittitas, the northwest half of Okanogan, and a strip in the extreme western part of Douglas. In the very dry or semi-arid region, where crops cannot be successfully grown without irrigation, are included Franklin county, the eastern two-thirds of Yakima, the eastern halves of Kittitas and Klickitat, the western half of Adams, the southwest part of Lincoln, the southeast half of Okanogan, and nearly the whole of Douglas county. There are two exceptions to the above classification which may be noticed.

One is an area in the extreme northeast part