Wednesday, August 29, 1900
THE SUMPTER MINER.
NORTHWEST CLIMATE.
Col. Donan Makes a Few Re
marks in N. Y. Herald.
PORTLAND, Or., Julv 3 1 To the E dltor
of the New York Herald.-Dear Sir: A
paper here publishes, this morning, an
aliened request sent by you to your Port
land correspondent last night for a report
of the heat prostrations and deaths in
this city and region during the day. I
must be permitted to doubt (lie genuine
ness of the dispatch. It would be a sad
shattering of my lifelong implicit faith in
the omni-science of Great not to say
Greater New York editors, ti be forced
to believe that one of them could he so
lacking as such a communication would
indicate, in knowledge of any important
part of the glorious hemisphere he adorns
and is supposed to illuminate.
The veriest tyro in United States
climatology ought to be aware that sun
strokes and prostrations and deaths from
heat are unknown in Portland and Oregon
and the Pacific Northwest.
Climate, as everybody above the grade
of an average American statesman or a
Digger Indian In intelligence, is sup
posed to know, is not regulated by lati
tude alone. Ocean currents and altitude
are potent factors in it. The snows of
untold ages Mr unmelted on the lofty
peaks of the CorJilleras in Mexico, the
Andes In South America, and the Hima
lays In India. The Alaskan coast, In the
latitude of Labrador and Greenland, has
a climate little more rigorous than that of
Maryland and Virginia. California, on
the same parallels with Nebraska, Kan
sas and Oklahoma, raises oranges,
bananas, pineapples, tigs, lemons, limes
and pomegranates. And Oregon and
Washington, in the latitude of hard-froen
Maine and blbardy Dakota w here It is
mid-winter half the year, and a mixture
of furnace-heated dog-days and very-l.ite-in-the-fall
during the other half
enjoy a climate that, in mildness and
equability, is unsurpassed on earth, and
is unrivaled anywhere else in the United
States.
With the Pacific OceJti laving its
western shores for joo miles will) the
warm waters of the Japanese current,
and with range on range of glint moun
tains, many of them capped with glaciers
and perpetual snow, tr.iverslng its entire
length, Oregon is climatically a realied
dream of paradise. There are no ex
tremes of temperature at any season,
below the snowline on the mountain
peaks. Tile mean temperature of Port
land for twentv-seven years past, has
been 53 degrees. The mean annual
temperature of the coast region is 51 de
grees, the tliermo meter rarely rising
above 78 degrees in the summer, or fall
ing below 3; degrees in the winter. In
Coos county, according to the United
States weather bureau reports for twenty
years, the mean temperature for January,
the coldest month, has been 45 degrees,
and for July and August, ttte warmest
months, 58 degrees a total range for the
year of but thirteen degrees.
Every temperate one grain, grass,
fruit and vegetable grows luxuriantly,
and many semi-tropical Iruits and tlowers
flourish; and yet, there is not a day in
the year when one cannot, if he will,
wallow in a snowdrift twenty teet deep,
or seat himself on an iceberg a hundred
yards square, by climbing a few miles up
some huge mountain siJr.
Last winter, as you doubtless remem
ber, was a howling terror of frigidity, all
over the hapless east with the ther
mometer crawling down to 30 degrees be
low zero in New England and northern
Ntw Yotl-,ii.d40 dtgitts t0 48dcgrees
below in the Dakotas, blizzards whistling
at sixty miles an hour, snow piled to the
tops of the lamp-posts and telegraph
poles, whiskey freezing in the glasses,
and frigid death and horror stalking
everywhere. While here in Portland,
Oregon, roses budded and bloomed and
lawn-mowers were running, all through
November, December and January; and,
in February, Spring had donned her
sweetest and fairest robes of leaf and
flower, and birds were singing love-songs
as they built their airy homes. The last
week in February one magnolia tree at
The Dalles, Oregon, charmed the breezes
and the sunshine with over 500 full-blown
blossoms.
This summer the whole east and south
have seethed and sweltered, as they do
every summer, with Intolerable heat.
From Maine to Texas, people have died
by hundreds, of sunstrokes and calorical
prostrations. The press dispatches re
port seventy deaths from these causes in
your great city yesterday. From Cape
Cod to Corpus Christ! the whole conti
nent has been a vast sizzling bake oven,
witli a sky of glowing brass for a lid, and
every brick and cobble-stone a gleaming
coal. All the corn-patches in Iowa and
Illinois have popped instead of sprouting,
and the nills are full of red, white and
blue popcorn balls, ready for the next
circus season. Ohio and Pennsylvania
agriculturists have been picking baked
apples from their trees and digging
roasted turnips and potatoes out of their
gardens. Fishermen in all the Michigan
and Wisconsin lakes are catching boiled
trout and pickerel witli chili same.
Your eastern liens are said to be laying
only hard-boiled, lunch counter eggs.
Even in the vaunted summer climate of
Chicago and Minnesota, every ther
mometer has kicked the top out and
boiled over like the Arkansaw doctor's
patient, who took twelve blue and twelve
white seldllt. powders separately with
from g8 degrees to 112 degrees of hideous
hotness in the shade. A universal wail
of sweaty anguish, beyond the power of
juleps and gin-fizzes to allay, has gone
up for many horrid, torrid weeks, from
your whole wretched land and people.
And, in all the time, there has not been
a night when the thrice-blessed dwellers
in western Oregon and Washington have
not slept under blankets, and not a day
when they could not look out upon the
everlasting snows that wreathe their
mighty mountain-tops. We have no
blUards, no tornadoes, and no thunder
storms. No hot weather hi summer, and
no cold weather In winter. There is
seldom, If ever, a day in the year when
llauuels and light overcoats are not com
fortable, or a night when heavy blankets
are not a necessity. Flowers bloom and
fruits and vegetable ripen in the open air
all the year round, and magnolias, ole
anders and jessamines untold their frag
rant loveliness, as they do in far southern
lauds. Trees and grass are green as
living emerald In December and January,
and the snowy crowns of Mount Hood,
.Mount Adams, Mount Saint Helen and
Mount Rainier-Tacoma glisten w hite and
dazzling in July and August. Could
God Almighty himself have devised a
more gloriously delightful climate?
And it is as healthful as It Is delightful.
The absence of all sudden changes and
trying extremes contributes much to
make It so. If the human system were
as expansive and contractile as mercury,
a six-foot man hi Dakota or Minnesota
would stalk along in mid-summer, at 110
degrees in the shade, with his head in
the tenth-story windows of city sky
scrapers; and In mid-winter, at 3$ de
grees to 55 degrees below zero, he would
shrink down Into the bulbs of his bro
gaus, shorter than a tin toy-solditr.
ThN alternate running of the whole
thermometrical gamut would, sooner or
later, wear off the paint and exhaust the
elastic vitality of a gunjuu-rubber doll.
1 here is none of it in Oregon, and it is
consequently not a matter of surprise
that the official statistics of the govern
ment show the death rate of Oregon and
her two sister states of the Pacific north
west to be the lowest in the union.
The United States census figures as to
the yearly number of deaths to the 1000
of population are: Idaho, 6.62; Oregon,
8.76, and Washington, 0.67 as compared
with 10.16 for Massachusetts; 16.58 for
New York and 14.72 for California.
That is, in proportion to population, there
are about two deaths in California to one
here, and three to one In Massachusetts
so the chances of living are three times as
good out here as in New England, and
twice as good as In the iolden State,
with all its boasted health resorts. The
report of the surgeon general of the
United States army places the annual
death rate among the troops stationed in
various parts of the country at one in $20
in the Pacific northwest that Is here;
one in 283 in New England; one In 113 in
thecentr.il Mississippi valley; one in 67 in
Texas, and one in 6$ in New Yoik.
Portland has an active and jolly club of
billiard players, whose ages average
seventy-nine years, the baby of the lot
being seventy-live; and a party of
harvesters in an eastern Oregon w heat
field, last week, averaged seventy-four
years, the driver of the harvesting
machine being a spry young chap ot
eighty-live years.
All blessedness of climate combine to
produce health and vigor out here.
Yours very respectfully,
P DONAN.
All kind of cake, pies bread etc., at
Brechtel's bakery, opposite the depot.
All orders filled promptly.
The Literary
Digest
IwuoJ WeeWv
ji I 'a,: 1". IllusttateJ
"All thi Ptrlodlcili In Om"
Til"' llUKMO. 1)1(11 sT has liken the hlchrsl
rank as .1 ueekK re leu nl cum nt t'liiuijhl ,11
home .111.I nbroaJ, In the realms ot literature, Jtt,
Mlttu'c, religion, politic,, sotlulncs, traset, Jl
cmerv business, ek Dlsstiisslun una" lntorm.v
tloii on all IJ(t ot ImpoiMni iuestloiware Risen.
The content e.uli week cmera tirlj vijlverslhej
.km make Till. I.HI Htn Dull M InJIspensal-le
to the huy nun uhu desires l.oi p up with the
thought ot thr time, but isho I ick the leisure lor
uch a task.
OPINIONS MOM AUIHORITIES
E. P. Powtll, D. 0., In 1'nlt), (.hicujn "Till'
l.llliMin puii'M In in alsoluie neiessltv tn
those lm woul.l keep In line ullh the ii'i;tes
ot thought il " J achievement. I .Intuit rr Imw
anv tlilnk'm; man cm net along sllhuiit It,"
Edwin Mitkhim, Author 1.1 ' ll.e Mm Willi
Ihellov" "lllll I lltww Dii.t-i Is oiifofthr
two or III lee most Wiluable jouinaN lli.il mme to
my table."
Jti-Santtir John J. Inplli; "Inn Imwsm
I. II ST enlarge Ihe piiuiij irles ul Intelligence."
Settlor Willlim P. Fry: "Il lll allorj lm
tneiise Js.lst.iiue tn the i 1ml its ot the uumm."
C. John P. Altpli, ot Illinois "Till' I III w
U DulIM K one ul the setvhesl uhtlratlon
III America. In a kluJitttol tuueiit literature It
l Invaluable.
10 Ctnti ptr Copy, Jl 00 ptr Yin
Jtn far Oticilptlit CHculn.
rUNK I WACNAUS, Pibllihtrs,
NEW YORK.
General brass and Iron Founders
and Machinists.
Baker City
Iron Works
Gl-O. F. MCI.YNN, Proprietor ::::::
Special .-itteiirion given to
repairing and rebuilding all
Kinds ot niaJiiuery.
Baker Hit v.
Telephone Ned 161
THE BKST APPOINTKU
& Pharmacy
IN l:ASTI:KN OUfc'GON.
No prescription too difficult to fill.
(Service day or nights
A complete line of druggists sundries, stationery and toilet articles.
& The Sumpter Drug o.
L. C. EDWARDS, MANAGI-R. SUMPTER, OREGON.
14 A. P. GOSS.
''''' -'I.'W'
A. P. GOSS, President
A. J. GOSS, Cashier
t
4V
& Bank of Sumpter 5
Trimicti Cineril Itnklni Builntu
Interest Allowed on Time Deposits
Drafts drawn on all parts of the world. Special attention to collections.
Safety Deposit boxes for rent.
SUMPTER, OREGON
k'.'.'
CAPITAL.
Barber Shop
M Baths
A. O. Davidson, Manager
ClAUU l)Htw, Operator
Operated in Connection
with Capital Hotel.
First-Class Work. Porce
lain Bath Tubs
Sumpter, Oregon
THE
Sumpter Forwarding Co.
General Storage, Commission and Forwarding.
Warehouse and office, S. V. Track.
SUMPTER, OREGON.