the United States of America

Sunshine.

The amount of sunshine in different parts of the United States is decidedly variable. In the far North-west and from the Lake region eastward the sun shines, on the average, less than half the total possible hours, but in some far South-western districts more than 85% of the possible amount occurs. The fall and winter months are especially cloudy in the North-western and North-eastern portions of the country.

Storms.

A characteristic of the United States climate is the frequency of tornadoes. These destructive storms find their real home in the great central lowlands east of the Rocky mountains. Nowhere else in the world are tornadoes as frequent, as violent, as destructive, as here. They have an importance peculiarly their own. The average annual number of tornadoes in the United States is 140, with an average loss of life of 260, and property damage averaging about $13,000,000. Property and crop damage from windstorms other than tornadoes, largely severe tropical storms from the Caribbean sea region, amounts, on the average, to about $20,000,000 a year.

Climatic Province.

In most of the United States east of the Rocky mountains climatic conditions are pre-eminently fa vourable for agriculture. A vast expanse of fairly level and fertile land, extending from the Great Plains to the Atlantic ocean, and from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, receives, as a rule, adequate rainfall and temperatures are mostly favourable for crop growth. Within this area there are several fairly distinct climatic belts, extending generally in an east-west direction as follows: Sub-tropical coast—this section has a warm and comparatively equitable climate with an average winter temperature ranging from 55° to 70°, favourable for winter truck crops, citrus fruits, sugar cane, rice, etc.

Cotton belt—immediately to the north lies the cotton belt, extending northward to south-eastern Virginia and the extreme lower Ohio valley, with a mean summer temperature of about 7 7° in the north and a frostless season about 200 days long. The average annual rainfall varies from about 20 inches in the ex treme western portion to about so inches in some eastern sections.

Corn and winter wheat belt—this province extends roughly from the Ohio valley States westward to the Rocky mountains.

The average summer temperature ranges from 78° in the south to 70° in the north and the frostless season from 140 days in the north to 200 days in the south.

Spring wheat belt—mostly in the central-northern portions of the country, with an average summer temperature along the Canadian border about 65°, increasing to 70° in the south. The frostless season ranges from i oo days in the north to 140 in the south.

of Maine, New Hampshire, Michigan, Minnesota and North Da kota ; it covers the Green Mountains, most of the Adirondacks and Catskills, the higher slopes of the mountains from Pennsylvania to North Carolina and Tennessee, the lower slopes of the northern Rocky and Cascade Mountains, the upper slopes of the southern Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains, and a strip along the Pacific coast as far south as Cape Mendocino. Among its characteristic Fauna.—Differences of temperature have produced in North America seven transcontinental life-zones or areas characterized by relative uniformity of both fauna and flora; they are the Arc tic, Hudsonian and Canadian, which are divisions of the Boreal Region ; the Transition, Upper Austral and Lower Austral, which are divisions of the Austral Region, and the Tropical.

The Arctic, Hudsonian and Canadian enter the United States from the north and the Tropical from the south ; but the greater part of the United States is occupied by the Transition, Upper Austral and Lower Austral, and each of these is divided into east ern and western subzones by differences in the amount of mois ture. The Arctic or Arctic-Alpine zone covers in the United States only the tops of a few mountains which extend above the limit of trees, such as Mt. Washington in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and the loftier peaks of the Rocky, Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountains. The larger animals are rare on these moun tain-tops. The Hudsonian zone covers the upper slopes of the higher mountains of New England, New York and North Carolina and larger areas on the elevated slopes of the Rocky and Cascade Mountains; and on the western mountains it is the home of the mountain goat and mountain sheep.