Note 54 — Chapter I · Why I went to Great Salt Lake City.—The various Routes.—The Line of Country traversed.—Diaries and Disquisitions. (continued 3)

The dry heat of the prairies in summer causes the wood to warp by the percolation of water, which the driver restores by placing the wheels for a night to stand in some stream. Paint or varnish is of little use. Moisture may be drawn out even through a nail-hole, and exhaust the whole interior of the wood-work.

[55] These remarks are borrowed from a paper by Professor Joseph Henry, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, entitled “Meteorology in its Connection with Agriculture.”

The Indian summer is synonymous with our St. Martin’s or Allhallows summer, so called from the festival held on the 11th of November. “The Indians avail themselves of this delightful time for harvesting their corn; and the tradition is that they were accustomed to say they always had a second summer of nine days before the winter set in. It is a bland and genial time, in which the birds, insects, and plants feel a new creation, and enjoy a short-lived summer ere they shrink finally from the rigor of the winter’s blast. The sky, in the mean time, is generally filled with a haze of orange and gold, intercepting the direct rays of the sun, yet possessing enough of light and heat to prevent sensations of gloom or chill, while the nights grow sharp and frosty, and the necessary fires give cheerful forecast of the social winter evenings near at hand.”—The National Intelligencer, Nov. 26th, 1857, quoted by Mr. Bartlett.