Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1893 — The Chinook Wind. [ARTICLE]

The Chinook Wind.

There is only one impression respecting the Chinook wind which I think it would be well to correct, and that is that it is a wind peculiar to this part of the world, writes a correspondent. It is only characteristic of this region in its greater prevalence and its more distinctly traceable and widespread effects. I might add that it also has a peculiar name here, but it is nothing more and nothing less than the west wind of the world—the west wind that Virgil so often refers to, the wind that Homer describes in the Odyssey as blowing soft from the ocean upon those fabled islands where winter is not, nor any burning summer heat. It is also noticed by Longfellow as descending upon the coast of Norway, and be aod other writers of poetry and prose have often noted it in descriptions of New England. I was familiar with it during iny early life in the Connecticut valley, and when I first felt it on the Columbia I recognized it as an old acquaintance. Whence it cornea or whither it goes is to a certain extent mysterious, but it belongs to no one quarter of the globe. It is more distinctive of this region, I

believe, tlian of any other. It is many times more abundant and prevalent here than on the Atlantic coast or in the interior of this country. But I think lam not mistaken in saying that we v arc favored beyond many other parts only in having more of it. Sweeping in from the west in these latitudes, it gives Eastern, Washington and Montana an earlier spring than Minnesota, and it is not exhausted entirely in crossing the continent, but touches the New England hills and valleys to unlock the rigors of winter still later there. —[Seattle (Washington) Post-Intelligencer.