Temperature. As winds are but masses of air set in motion by the unequal heating, the winds of any given place depend primarily upon the temperature, though not necessarily upon the temperature of that place. As the air is heated in the tropical parts of the earth by the sun, it rises, and colder air flows in from the polar regions to take its place; hence the primary currents, which are modified in various ways by other causes. Rotation of the Earth.- The winds are turned out of their course by the rotation of the earth in the same manner as the ocean currents. Land and Water. The land becomes warmer during the day than the sea, and, the air rising, a cooler air flows in from the sea. At night the land parts with its heat more rapidly than the water and becomes cooler; then the wind sets the other way. Hence we have the land and sea breezes. Eleration of the Land.- Mountains, as has already been stated, shelter places from winds. Some of the great plains are subject to almost constant winds. In regard to moisture, the climate of a place depends upon : Prevailing Wind.-If a wind blows from large bodies of water in a warm region it will be laden with moisture which will be likely to be precipitated on reaching a colder country. Mountains.-The contact of a moistureladen wind with the cold sides of mountains will cause a precipitation of its moisture, and the regions beyond the mountains will not receive it. Forests, by shading the earth, keep its surface cool, and this tends to condense the moisture. Cultivation of the Soil, causing it to absorb moisture from the atmosphere, and by capillary attraction in dry weather bring up moisture from below to the surface. Temperature. Increased heat causes greater evaporation, and hence more moisture in the atmosphere. More rain falls within the tropics than in the temperate or polar regions. Land and Water.- More rain falls on the coasts of a country than in the interior, because the winds are more moist. More rain falls in the northern hemisphere than in the southern, because there is a greater diversity of land and water, the evaporation coming mainly from the ocean, and the condensation from the diversified land surface. Isothermal lines are lines connecting places that have the same mean temperature. There is a line or limit of elevation, above which the surface is covered with perpetual snow; this is called the snow-line. Coaches. Covered carriages appear to have been used by the old Romans. In the year 1588, Duke Julius of Brunswick published an act against riding in coaches. Philip II. of Pomerania-Stettin published a similar document in 1608. Coaches appear to have been used in France very early. An ordinance of Philip the Fair, issued in 1294, for suppressing luxury, forbids citizens' wives to ride in coaches. Coaches were first used in England in 1565, the first being that made for the Earl of Rutland. In 1601 an act was passed to prevent men riding in coaches, on the score of its effeminacy. Coaches began to be common in 1605, and were petitioned against by the saddlers and other. Hackney coaches introduced in 1634. In 1661, a stage coach was two days going from London to Oxford, and the " flying coach was thirteen hours, even in summer weather, when the roads were at their best. Coffins.- Athenian heroes were buried in coffins of the cedar tree, owing to its aromatic and incorruptible qualities. Coffins of marble and stone were used by the Romans. Alexander is said to have been buried in one of gold; and glass coffins have been found in England. The earliest record of wooden coffins among the English speaking people is that of the burial of King Arthur in an entire trunk of oak, hollowed, A. D. 542. The patent coffins were invented in 1796. Gold Coin. Silver was first coined by Phidon, King of Argos, 869 B. C. In Rome, silver money was first coined 269 B. C. Gold and silver coins first used in the East. Coin first used in Britain 25 B. C., and in Scotland not until 248 years later. In 1101, round coins were first used in England. Silver halfpence and farthings were coined in the reign of John, and pence were the largest current coins. was first coined in England in 1087; in Bohemia, in 1301. In 1531, groats and half-groats were the largest silver coin in England. Gold was first coined in Venice in 1346. Shillings were first coined in England in 1068. Crowns and half-crowns were first coined in 1551. Henry III. introduced copper money into France in 1580. Copper money introduced into England by James I. in 1620. ess of milling coin introduced in 1662. The mint of the United States of America was established in 1793. The proc Comets. It has been lately suggested that there is a great degree of affinity between comets and meteors- in fact, that a comet is merely an aggregation of meteors. Comets have been supposed to be bodies of burning gas. Their mass is very great, and their brilliant tails are many millions of miles in extent. In their orbits, they differ greatly from the planets. While the latter are direct In a in their wanderings, comets are most irregular Europe by Marco Polo on his return from and eccentric. When first seen, the comet Cathay. It was long contended that the comresembles a faint spot of light upon the back-pass as a nautical instrument was first invented ground of the sky. As it comes nearer, the by Flavio Gioja, a native of Amalfi, about the brightness increases and the tail begins to show. year 1362, and that the section of the Kingdom The term comet signifies a hairy body. A of Naples where he was born has a compass for comet consists usually of three parts: the nu- its arms. For this there is no authority whatcleus, a bright point in the center of the head; ever, as the compass was well known as a nauthe coma (hair), the cloud-like mass surround- tical instrument before his time. The pheing the nucleus; and the tail, a luminous train nomena of the magnetic needle which perplex extending generally in a direction from the sun. scientists most are that in every place it is subIt is not understood whether comets shine by ject to variations. By observation at Paris it their own or by reflected light. If their nuclei was found that in 1681 the needle varied 2 consist of white-hot matter, a passage through degrees 30 minutes to the west; in 1865, 18 such a furnace would be anything but desirable. degrees 44 minutes to the west. At London, The discovery of the elliptical orbit of comets between 1580 and 1692, the needle varied from is due to Halley. He discovered a comet in 10 degrees 15 minutes east to 6 degrees west. 1682 which he demonstrated to be a return of In Dakota the average variation is 12 degrees the comet described by Kepler in 1607; that 30 minutes east, in Minnesota 11 degrees east, it had appeared in 1531, and that it was the while in Montana it is 20 degrees east. comet that had appeared still earlier by the work on Government Surveys it is stated that same period of seventy-five years, in 1457, and "the needle does not point due north except that had caused such consternation among the in a few localities, and at no place does it conChristians, who regarded it as a sign,-Con- tinue to point with a given angular distance stantinople having just fallen and all Europe from the north for any stated length of time. being threatened by the Turks. Halley also It changes secularly, annually, diurnally and predicted the return of the comet in 1757. It hourly, and is, further, subject to fluctuations reached its perihelion in 1759. Its last appear- reducible to no method of tabulation." In the ance was in 1835. It will be looked for in 1911. vicinity of iron or magnetic sands, the needle Encke's, Biela's, and the comets of 1843 is deflected toward the material attracting it. and 1858 are comparatively recent. Others came in 1861, 1874, 1883. In 1881, two comets appeared. Some comets of antiquity were very remarkable, and are reputed to have equaled the sun in magnitude. One tail is usually supposed to be the distinguishing mark of a comet, but in 1774 one appeared with six tails, arranged something like a fan. Sometimes the tail is separated from the head. Some comets appear at regular intervals, and their approach can be determined with accuracy. Of course we only see those which are attracted by the sun, or those which revolve in the solar system. There must be thousands of other comets which we never see at all. Compass, The. The directive power of the magnet seems to have been unknown in Europe until late in the twelfth century. It appears, however, on very good authority, that it was known in China and throughout the east generally at a very remote date. The Chinese annals assign its discovery to the year 2634 B. C., when, they say, an instrument for indicating the south was constructed by the Emperor Hon-ang-ti. At first, they would appear to have used it exclusively for guidance in traveling by land. The earliest date at which we hear of their using it at sea is somewhere about A. D. 300. According to one account, a knowledge of the compass was brought to Compressed-Air Engines. The arrangements of atmospheric engines is largely identical with that of non-condensing steamengines, and they are used very generally both in the United States and Europe in the construction of tunnels, their great advantage being that in place of escaping heat and steam, which would seriously vitiate the close air in the shaft, the working of the engine gives out pure cold air, serving also the purpose of ventilation. An engine worked by compressed air, however, can never be a prime motor in itself, since the air which propels it must be compressed by another power-either steam, electricity, falling water, or animal force. There are several ways of applying this_compressed air. One is to fill with it a large, strong cylinder or reservoir, and use it to work a piston in the same way that steam is used. Another is to conduct the air from the prime motor in tubes to several smaller engines. In the construction of the Mont Cenis Tunnel the hydraulic power of a cataract near the entrance of a tunnel was used as a prime motor to compress air in reservoirs, whence it was conducted by flexible tubes to work the rock-boring machines. When this boring is done by percussion of steel drills, the atmospheric pressure moves a piston connected with them. When the boring is performed by rotation, as is the case with the diamond drill, the atmos- troduced into Italy. Indian muslins, chintzes, pheric engine is either a rotary or reciprocat- and cottons were so largely imported into ing one. Compressed air is also used with England in the seventeenth century, that an steam as a motor. Air when compressed act of parliament followed prohibiting their greatly becomes very hot, and if it is then introduction. Cotton became the staple comforced through hot water it becomes saturated modity of England in the present century. with steam, and this steam and air are found, First cotton factory in America established at to have enormous expansive power. This East Bridgewater, Mass., 1787. First power motive-power has been very successfully applied to the propulsion of street cars. In the working of electric-light machinery compressed air is used to a considerable extent. Copernican System, The, is that which represents the sun to be at rest in the center of the universe, and the earth and planets to move round it as a center. It got its name from Copernicus, who (although some vague general notion of the system seems to be due to Pythagoras) first distinctly drew the attention of philosophers to it, and devoted his life to its demonstration. For the rest, the glory of developing on the lines he broadly laid down, belongs to Kepler, Galileo, and others, and to Newton, who finally marked out the form of modern theoretical astronomy. Many who reverence the name of Copernicus in connection with this system, would be surprised to find, on perusing his work, how much of error, unsound reasoning, and happy conjecture combined to secure for him in all time the association of the system with his name; yet, with all its faults, that work marks one of the greatest steps ever taken in science. Corsets. An article of dress somewhat resembling the corsets now worn by women was used in Germany and France as early as the thirteenth century, and it found its way into England in the latter half of the fourteenth century. It contained rods and plates of whalebone and steel, and was designed, we are told, to conceal the defects and exaggerate the beauties of the figure. This stiff arrangement was discarded at the time of the French Revolution owing to the Greek costume having been brought into vogue, and its place was taken by a smoothly fitting under waist. Cotton, a vegetable wool, is the product of a shrub indigenous to the tropical regions of India and America. Indian cotton cloth is mentioned by Herodotus, was known in Arabia in the time of Mahomet 627, and was brought into Europe by his followers. It does not appear to have been in use among the Chinese till the thirteenth century; to them we are indebted for the cotton fabric termed nankeen. Cotton was the material of the principal articles of clothing among the American Indians, when visited by Columbus. It was grown and manufactured in Spain in the tenth century; and in the fourteenth century was in looms in the United States, 1813. The method of spinning cotton was formerly by hand; but about 1767 Mr. Hargraves, of Lancashire invented the spinning jenny with eight spindles; he also erected the first carding machine with cylinders. Sir Richard Arkwright obtained a patent for a new invention of machinery in 1769; and another patent for an engine in 1775. Crompton invented the mule, a further and wonderful improvement in the manufacture of cotton in 1779, and various other improvements have been since made. In 1793, Eli Whitney, an American, invented the cotton gin, a machine by which cotton wool is separated from the pod and cleaned with great ease and expedition. Cremation.-The reduction of the human body to ashes by fire was a very early and widespread usage of antiquity. The early Arvans, as opposed to the non-Aryan aborigines of India, Greeks, Romans, Sclavs, Celts, and Germans, burned their dead; therefore cremation may be regarded as the universal custom of the Indo-European races. The graves of North Europe throughout the bronze age" contain only jars of ashes. The advocates of disposing of the dead by cremation are at the present time numerous, their principal arguments in favor of it being of a sanitary nature. According to the method which is most favored by modern cremationists, the body is placed in an oblong brick or iron-cased chamber, underneath which is a furnace. The air of the chamber is raised to a very high temperature before the body is put in, and a stream of heated hydro-carbon from a gasometer is then admitted, which on contact with intensely-heated air within immediately bursts into flame. The chamber is, of course, so constructed as neither to admit draughts of air from without nor to permit the escape of gas from within. The noxious gases which are evolved in the beginning of the combustion process are passed through a flue into a second furnace, where they are entirely consumed. By this process a body weighing 144 pounds can be reduced in about fifty minutes to not more than four pounds of lime-dust. In the cremation of each body about 200 pounds of fuel is used. Crockery.— The materials used in the manufacture of crockery are kaolin, pipe-clay, French government, that it awarded to its inventor a life pension of 6,000 francs. Damascus Steel. The skill of the Damascenes in the manufacture of steel became famous in Europe at the time of the Crusades, but the secrets of their process have never been revealed. A Russian mining engineer, Gen however, succeeded in making steel that could scarcely be distinguished from it in appearance. The essential point of his process was melting the iron in crucibles with graphite and a small quantity of dolomite; but the details of working these materials with success were of course known only by himself, and the quality of the steel produced by the works since his death has very much deteriorated. An imitation of Damascus steel is also made in America and is often known by that name, though its proper appellation is damask steel, so called from the peculiar damask figures on its surface. quartz or flint, and feldspar—the kaolin and quartz to give hardness, and the pipe-clay and feldspar to yield a flux sufficient to bind the masses firmly together. The materials are ground into a fine powder and then mixed with water in a machine called a " blunger," which is a box containing paddles worked very rapidly. When the matter has been thoroughly eral Anosoff, by analysis and examination, mixed it is drawn off and forced by a hydraulic pump through a series of sieves and then worked up in what is called a pug-mill, after which it is cut by a fine wire into rectangular blocks. These blocks are then molded into the shape of the article desired, some by the use of a lathe, and some by simply shaping them with the hands. The pieces are thus partially dried, turned on a lathe with a sharp tool to give them a uniform surface, dried slowly in a drying room, then baked in an oven. In baking the ware is kept at a white heat for thirty-six hours. The pieces are then glazed by being dipped in a mixture of ground feldspar, ground flint, sal soda, plastic clay, and boracic acid, the whole pulverized and mixed with a small proportion of white lead and a little cobalt blue. This glaze is mixed with water, the articles are dipped in it one by one, receiving a deposit like a thin paste on the surface, which, when placed in the oven again, fuses and flows over it, making a coating of glassy smoothness. Fine, white china or porcelain is of course made of finer material than crockery, but the process of manufacture is similar. Cryolite is a snow-white mineral, partially transparent, of a vitreous luster and of brittle texture. It is so named from its fusibility in the flame of a candle. It is a compound of sodium, fluorine, and aluminum, and is used for the preparation of the metal aluminum. It occurs in veins in gneiss with pyrites and galena, and has been found in western Greenland and at Miyask in the Ural Mountains. It is extensively employed in the United States in the manufacture of white porcelain glass, and also in the preparation of caustic soda. Daguerreotype. The name given to a process invented by M. Daguerre of Paris in 1839, by which perfect facsimiles of objects are transferred upon thin copper plates, plated with silver. The images are produced by the action of light upon the iodine through the focus of the camera obscura. An apparatus somewhat kindred in design was in contemplation about the same time by M. Niepce, and about five years previously by Henry Fox Talbot of London; the original idea, however, is traceable as far back as the days of Roger Bacon. So important a discovery in the fine arts was the daguerreotype deemed by the Damask Linens and Silks. They were first manufactured at Damascus, and hence the name; have been imitated by the Dutch and Flemish. The manufacture was introduced into England by artisans who fled from the persecutions of Alva, 1571-3. Day and Night. The earth has two constant motions: (1) its daily motion, or rotation on its axis (its shorter diameter), from west to east; (2) its yearly motion, or movement in a nearly circular path (called its orbit) around the sun. The length of time the earth is turning on its axis is called a day. Every part of the earth's surface being successively carried into light and shade, the daily rotation causes the phenomena of day and night. The length of time the earth is in passing around the sun is called a year. It turns on its own axis in the same time about 3654 times, hence there are 3654 days in a year. As the earth revolves from west to east, the sun will appear to travel from east to west. At the equator the days and nights are always twelve hours long; the farther a point lies from the equator, the longer are its longest day and its longest night. At the poles the year is made up of but one day and one night, each lasting six months. All places in about 66 degrees of latitude, north or south, have one day in the year twenty-four hours long, and one night of an equal length. Dew.- For any assigned temperature of the atmosphere there is a certain quantity of aqueous vapor which it is capable of holding in suspension at a given pressure. Conversely, for any assigned quantity of aqueous vapor held in suspension in the atmosphere there is a minimum temperature at which it can re main so suspended. This minimum temperature is called the dew point. During the daytime, especially if there has been sunshine, a good deal of aqueous vapor is taken into suspension in the atmosphere. If the temperature in the evening now falls below the dew point, which after a hot and calm day generally takes place about sunset, the vapor which can be no longer held in suspension is deposited on the surface of the earth, sometimes to be seen visibly falling in a fine mist. Another form of the phenomenon of dew is as follows: The surface of the earth, and all things on it, and especially the smooth surfaces of vegetable productions, are constantly parting with their heat by radiation. If the sky is covered with clouds, the radiation sent back from the clouds nearly supplies an equivalent for the heat thus parted with; but if the sky be clear, no equivalent is supplied, and the surface of the earth and things growing on it become colder than the atmosphere. If the night also be calm, the small portion of air contiguous to any of the surfaces will become cooled below the dew point, aud its moisture deposited on the surface in the form of dew. If the chilled temperature be below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, the dew becomes frozen, and is called hoar-frost. The above two phenomena, though both expressed in our language by the word "dew which perhaps helps to lead to a confusion of ideas on the subject. are not necessarily expressed by the same word. For instance, in French, the first phenomenon --the falling evening dewis expressed by the word serein; while the latter-the dew seen in the morning gathered in drops on the leaves of plants or other cool surfaces-is expressed by the word rosée. Similar to rosée is the moisture which condenses on the outside surface of pitchers or glasses of ice-water. The air in immediate contact is cooled below the dew point and deposits the suspended moisture. Dictionary.—A standard dictionary of the Chinese language, containing about 40,000 characters, most of them hieroglyphics, or rude representations somewhat like our signs of the zodiac, was perfected by Pa-out-she, who lived about 1100 B. C. Cyclopedias were compiled in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The first dictionary of celebrity, perhaps the first, is by Ambrose Calepini, a Venetian friar; it is in Latin; he wrote another in eight languages, about A. D. 1500. Chambers's Cyclopedia, the first dictionary of the circle of the arts and sciences, was published in 1728. The English dictionary by Samuel Johnson appeared in 1755. Noah Webster's great American dictionary of the English language in two volumes was published at New Haven in 1828. Worcester's dictionary appeared in 1860. Harper's Latin Dictionary (founded upon Andrews's translation of Freund's LatinGerman lexicon), adopted as the standard authority in English and American universities, was published in 1879. Discovery of Gold in California.— On January 19, 1848, John W. Marshall was building a mill for himself and Sutter on the south fork of the American River, fiftyfour miles east of Sutter's Fort. This mill, it was expected, would supply the ranches and settlements with pine lumber. On this particular morning Marshall picked up from the bed-rock of the race of the mill a small piece of yellow metal which weighed about seventeen grains. It was malleable, heavier than silver, and in all respects resembled gold. Marshall showed the piece in the afternoon to those who were working at the mill. The result of the discussion which ensued was the rejection of the gold theory. Marshall, however, was not satisfied, and afterward tested it with nitric acid, and found it was actually gold. He discovered pieces like it in all the surrounding gulches wherever he dug for it. The news of the discovery soon spread, and in April reports of the find were published. Diving Bells.-The principle of the diving bell is extremely simple, and can be seen by pressing any hollow vessel mouth downward into water. Although some species of diving bell was probably used in the time of Aristotle for it is recorded that divers took with them a vessel which enabled them to remain under water— and in medieval times, it was not until about 1715 that any practical method of supplying the bell with air while under water was discovered. About that year this want was met by a Doctor Halley. He used two water-tight barrels, each supplied with a hose, also attached to the diving bell, and these, attached to heavy weights, were dropped on each side of the bell, and the diver could, therefore, remain under water as long as the air supplied by the barrels was fit to breathe. The diver's cap, which was made of metal and fitted with a tube for conveying air to it from the bell, so that the wearer could leave the bell and walk around the bottom of the sea, was soon after devised by the same inventor. In 1779, the air pump, which forced down air from above, was applied to diving bells by an engineer named Smeaton. The most practical bell in use at present is a sort of submarine boat, called the Nautilus, with double sides, between which water is forced to cause the boat to descend and air to cause it to rise. |