of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, pages 23-24
CLIMATE. In former years considerable objection was made to the prevalence of high winds in Iowa, which is somewhat greater than in the states south and east. But climatic changes have lessened that grievance. The air, in fact, is pure and generally bracing, particularly so during the winter. Thunderstorms are also more violent in this state than in those of the east and south but not near so much as toward the mountains. As elsewhere in the northwestern states, westerly winds bring rain and snow, while easterly ones clear the sky. While the highest temperature occurs in August, the month of July averages the hottest and January the coldest. The mean temperature of April and October nearly corresponds to the mean temperature of the year, as well as to the seasons of spring and fall, while that of summer and winter is best represented by August and December. "Indian Summer" is delightful and well prolonged.
TOPOGRAPHY. The state lies wholly within and comprises apart of a vast plain. There are no mountains and scarcely any hilly country within its borders, for the highest point is but one thousand, two hundred feet above the lowest point. These two points are nearly three hundred miles apart and the whole state is traversed by gently flowing rivers. We thus find there is a good degree of propriety in regarding the whole state as belonging to a great plain, the lowest point of which within its borders, the southeastern corner of the state, is only four hundred and forty-four feet above the level of the sea. The average height of the whole state above the level of the sea is not far from eight hundred feet, although it is over a thousand miles from the nearest ocean. These remarks of course are to be understood as only applying to the state at large, or as a whole. On examining its surface in detail we find a great diversity of surface for the formation of valleys out of the general level, which have been evolved by the actions of streams during the unnumbered years of terrace epoch. These river valleys are deepest in the northwestern part of the state and consequently it is there that the country has the greatest diversity of surface and its physical features are most strongly marked.
It is said that ninety-five per cent of the surface of Iowa is capable of a high state of cultivation. The soil is justly famous for its fertility and there is probably no equal area of the earth's surface that contains so little untillable land, or whose soil has so high an average of fertility.
LAKES AND STREAMS. The largest of Iowa's lakes are Spirit and Okoboji, in Dickinson county, Clear Lake, in Cerro Gordo county, and Storm Lake, in Buena Vista county. Its rivers consist of the Mississippi and Missouri, the Chariton, Grand, Platte, One Hundred and Two, Nodaway, Nishnabotna, Boyer, Soldier, Little Sioux, Floyd, Rock, Big Sioux, Des Moines, Skunk, Iowa, Cedar, Wapsipinicon, Turkey and Upper Iowa.
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