FEET. Mount Ranier (Tacoma) 14,444 Mount Baker 10,827 Mount Adams 9,570 Mount St. Helens 9,750 Natchess Pass 4,900 Stampede Pass, Summit 3,980 Tunnel, Stampede Pass 2,885 Snoqualmie Pass 3,110 Kechelus Lake 2,388 Kachess Lake 2,158 Ellensburg 1,518 Yakima City 990 Ainsworth 351 Palouse Junction 858 Sprague 1,200 Spokane Falls 1,910 Colville 1,917 Fort Spokane 1,300 Okinagane Lake 1,163 Great Plain of Columbia River 1,000 to 3,000 Snake River, N. P. R. R. 358 Colfax 1,941 Dayton 1,360 Walla Walla 1,000 Wallula Junction 326 CLIMATE. [Sidenote: The Climate of Washington Territory.] Climate is a matter of temperature, moisture and atmospheric dynamics. The general law of temperature is that the farther north the colder the weather; and yet currents of water and prevailing winds may give to the country a climate geographically belonging to quite a different latitude. We know how this is with England, which, judged by latitude, ought to be colder than Maine, but which, in fact, has one of the mildest and most equable climates in the world. England is farther north than Washington Territory, which latter is in the latitude of France; but it is also in the latitude of Montana, Dakota and Maine, States remarkable for sudden changes and for terrible cold. But it is well known that our Pacific States, at least on their western borders, have a temperature free from extremes in both summer and winter. Taking July and January as the hottest and coldest months, it will be found that the average temperature at San Francisco and Puget Sound is from 7° to 14° cooler than it is in the Rocky Mountains and in New England during the same months. And on the other hand, taking January as the coldest month, we find that Bismarck, Denver, New England, etc., are 30° to 40° colder than the points on the Pacific. In other words, that the range of the thermometer between extremes averages near 50° more in the East than it does in the West in the localities named; a very great difference when we consider comfort, health, cost of living, and opportunity to labor in the open air. [Sidenote: Mild and equable.]