Between
the 45th and 49th degrees north latitude, the snow does not fall so
deep as it does between the 40th and 45th degrees; this is easily
accounted for upon the same principle that in the fall they have
frosts much earlier near the 40th than they do near the 45th degree. I
say this in reference to the country watered by the Mississippi River.
Owing to its altitude the atmosphere is dry beyond belief, which
accounts for the absence of frosts in the fall, and for the small
quantity of snow that falls in a country so far north. Voyageurs
traverse the territory from Lake Superior to the Missouri the entire
winter with horses and sleds, having to make their own roads, and yet
with heavy loads are not detained by snow. Lumbermen in great numbers
winter in the pine regions of Minnesota with their teams, and I have
never heard of their finding the snow too deep to prosecute their
labors. I have known several winters when the snow at no time was over
six inches deep."
The Hon. H. H. Sibley, ex-delegate from Minnesota, in a letter dated
at Mendota says: "As our country is for the most part composed of
prairie, it is of course much exposed to the action of the winds.
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