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of prudent, cautious invalids to endure the comparatively low winter temperature. The small amount of aqueous vapor permits the solar rays to transmit their heat, without much absorption by the air, to the body of the invalid. But let him once quit the sunshine and he realizes the force of the Italian proverb: " Only dogs and strangers seek the shade." Since differences of 30° to 40° obtain at Nice between sun and shade, the need of prudence and experience to preserve or recover health is but too evident.

It is significant of the state of public knowledge in respect to humidity that local writers use, and all interested quote, that phase of humidity which best suits their line of argument.

In Chart II. will be found the conditions of absolute humidity for the United States, as determined for January from ten years' observations. Attention is invited to this map, which shows the grains of water in each cubic foot of air. Although less than one grain per foot is present in the air during January over the greater part of the upper Lake region, yet it is not unusual to see the statement made that the air is very moist since the relative humidity is high. Similarly in Florida and Georgia where from 2.5 to 5 grains or more of water is present in each cubic foot of air, the atmosphere is often said to be dry or moderately dry, even drier than in the northern section of the country.

no knowledge of the physical changes wrought in an invalid transferred from a locality having a very high absolute humidity to a very low one, but he deems it desirable to draw attention to this point as illustrating the very great importance of absolute humidity as a climatological factor of health conditions.* The map of absolute humidity for January shows, with other data herewith, that for dry cold air one must seek Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, northern Michigan, and northern Iowa. Dry warm air is found in southwestern Texas and the southern portions of Arizona and New Mexico, during the winter.

The great German meteorologist, Dr. Hahn, has very accurately and graphically set forth the fact that there is no element of the climate which so certainly marks its softness or severity as the variation of the average temperature from day to day. In determining this variability of the temperature, the mean is obtained from the changes which take place, whether they are plus or minus, since a sudden fall in temperature and a sudden rise are almost equally trying and injurious.

Chart III., on the opposite page, shows the average changes in temperature, from day to day, for the entire year, as deduced from many years' observations of the United States Signal Service. It may be fairly assumed that changes in the mean daily temperature exceeding five degrees, from day to day, mark a winter climate which is more or less trying to all, and absolutely injurious to invalids or persons of delicate constitution.

It needs but a casual inspection of the map to show that such mildness of climate obtains in the United States only in the Florida peninsula and in the country to the west of the Rocky Mountains. While the variability in the Peninsula of Florida is slight, yet for weather which is practically unchangeable one must go to the westward of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges.

Apart from the effect of absolute humidity directly on the comfort of man, by abstracting heat from the body, may be mentioned the necessary consequence on the respiratory organs, in cases of a very low or a very high degree of absolute humidity. In certain portions of the country, assuming three hundred cubic feet of air to be inhaled daily, a man takes into his lungs in January one hundred and twenty-five grains of water each day, while in other localities he inhales over eighteen hundred grains. Since the amount of moisture exhaled by a man in health is fairly constant throughout the year, it follows that in one case nearly seventeen hundred * Those who are further interested in the possible efgrains more of water must be extracted fect of low absolute humidity and low temperatures may from the blood through the lung-tissues find a discussion of the subject in The Causation of Pneuthan in the other case.

The writer has

Along the immediate Pacific coast, from San Diego northward to Vancouv

monia," by Dr. H. B. Baker, Michigan State Board of Health. Lansing, 1888.

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the temperature changes is so modified that they average five degrees or less along the immediate Gulf coast, while in March the conditions are further ameliorated, and sudden changes are few end far between as far northward as Charleston, Augusta, Montgomery, or Little Rock; while similarly favorable conditions obtain in the Northern States along the Jersey and southern New England coasts and Long Island. In the north

and northern or upper Georgia, in order named, most frequently show excessive changes in temperature from day to day. New Mexico is somewhat more equable. California and southern Arizona, however, have remarkably equable temperatures, the least degree of variability being found along the immediate coast from San Francisco to San Diego, with slightly but not materially larger changes from Sacramento southward to Yuma, Ariz.

Variability of temperature of 6 deg's or more daily.

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ern parts of New York and New England, the climate does not, however, soften to this extent until the middle of May.

Chart IV. illustrates further the variability of temperature at Nice, France, and eleven stations in the United States, which cover those sections having strong climatic claims as winter sanatoria. This chart shows, in percentages, the chances of any day in December, January, or February being followed by a day whose mean temperature will be more than six degrees warmer or colder. The limit of six degrees has been assumed as the largest change in mean temperature compatible with comfort, as any greater rise or fall of temperature, even in the United States, is considered a decided change. Colorado, Minnesota, northern Florida,

January

Of data charted, San Diego and San Francisco show conditions most nearly approaching that of Nice, which Îatter place, while excelling the California coast stations in this respect, is inferior as regards low temperatures, high winds and especially the presence of snow and ice-unknown conditions along the coast of southern California.

One of the greatest benefits to be derived from health-resorts in winter is the opportunity and inducement for exercise in the open air, and since invalids shrink from chilling temperatures, there is a necessity not only of warm days, but also absence of high winds and low relative humidity, conditions which, especially the winds, tend to rapidly abstract heat from the body.

Besides, clear bright days without too frequent rain are needful to enliven and cheer the invalid, and remove him from the depressing impressions which always result from confinement through stress of dull or stormy weather.

Chart V. gives for fourteen stations, covering the country most frequented in winter, the velocity of the wind at 3 P.M., about the hour at which the wind is at its highest. Winds below ten miles an hour may be considered satisfactory. El Paso, Charlotte, and St. Paul show the least wind. Santa Fé, San Francisco, and San Antonio are most liable to high winds. All these stations are far superior to Nice, where the probabilities of strong winds on any day increase throughout the winter, being 16 per centum of the entire number of days

Stations

Santa Fe

SanAntonio Denver

Jacksonville

Sanford

Augusta Charlotte

Average velocity of wind at 3 p.m.

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18

9

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December

in December, 18 in January, and 25 in February. As many as 16 cases of strong winds, or 57 per centum of days in February, have been known to occur at Nice. In connection with the velocity of the wind, the tendency is general for winds to increase in strength from December to March, which latter month in the United States is marked, if not with the lowest and most sudden changes of temperature, yet with the highest winds. At Augusta and Jacksonville the wind is higher in March than in February, although at Yuma the reverse holds good. This emphasizes the fact that higher winds are usually to be looked for in the opening Sanfordmonth of spring.

Stations

per cent

December

January

February

and February. California is supposed by many to have continuous rain during the winter, but Chart VI. shows that Sacramento is favored with substantially as many rainless days in winter as northern Florida, while San Francisco has the same as Augusta, and less than Charlotte, N. C. Thirty per centum is about as high a percentage of rainy days as can be commended to invalids.

As one of the ablest and most distinguished physicians of the country has said, little or nothing can be done to modify the course and prevent the development of epidemic diseases dependent on atmospheric changes, but certainly much can be done in determining the meteorological conditions which promote or facilitate the disease, so that with an accurate knowledge of the varied climatic conditions to be found in our vast territory the skilful physician can ameliorate the conditions, check the

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40

CharlotteSan Francisco

30

Jacksonville

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Nice, France San Diego

Santa F Denver El Paso

10

10

Yuma

As regards the number of rainy days, including those on which snow falls, it will probably surprise Americans to know that rain or snow during the winter months is more frequent at Nice than from western Texas to Arizona; and even as shown by the curve of rain for San Diego, the percentages are in favor of southern California during January

VOL. IV.-65

Chart VI.

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disease itself, or, better still, forestall it by sending in time for prevention those most liable to attacks into a favorable and proper climate.

THE PORT OF MISSING SHIPS.

By John R. Spears.

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HE big sky-sail clipper ship Governor George T. Oglesby, of Bath, lay beside the pier at the foot of Wall Street, almost loaded with a miscellaneous cargo for Portland, Oregon. A line of trucks with goods for the big ship reached from the ship's gangway across South Street and nearly half way up to Front Street. The engineer in the little coop that covered the hoisting engine on the pier was red in the face from his extra exertions with throttle and coal shovel, for the stevedore up on the ship's rail was making things jump, in the hopes of completing the cargo before six o'clock that night. The longshoremen on the pier, about the deck, and in the hold of the ship worked with unwonted zeal, while the ship's mate, having set a young man from the agent's office to checking off the goods that were hoisted from the pier to the tune of the stevedore's whistle, was trying to see how near he could come to standing in two parts of the ship at once without splitting himself, and at the same time keep his two eyes aloft on the riggers at work on all three masts. The riggers were stretching the sails, fresh from an overhauling in the sailloft, along the yards and making them fast there, and the mate was taking his oath that he "never see such a gang of lubbers as them riggers," and offering to bet his soul against a worn out chew of tobacco that the first capful of wind that struck the ship would strip the canvas off her, fore and aft. The ship's master, Captain Walter W. Allen, of Newburyport, was not in sight, having gone to the office of the agents to settle some accounts and sign the papers, but what with the moving of the trucks, under the shouts of noisy truckmen, and the hoisting of the cargo, with the noise

of whistle and steam engine, and the hoisting and stretching of sails to the orders of mate and riggers, there was no end of animation about the Governor George T. Oglesby; a landsman would have said there was a babel of confusion, but to the eye of the sailorman everything was working with a smoothness and regularity seldom to be found under like circumstances except on the deck of a Yankee clipper.

Just after three o'clock-six bells, the stevedore called the hour-when the stir and noise, as he would have said, had reached flood tide, there was a splash in the water alongside the big clipper. Half a dozen loungers on the next pier on the south side became suddenly animated with the appearance of life, and hurried to the string-piece, over which they leaned and pointed excitedly toward something that was struggling and splashing about in the water.

"It's a woman," said one, excitedly, "I see her har."

"What's yer givin' us? It's the dog off'n the Guv'ner Ojelsby," said another. "Yer a stuff; it's a man. Why in hell don't some of yous run for a cop?" said a third.

Nobody ran, but every one knew just what was the matter and what some one else ought to do. There was a man drowning in the water close alongside the big black hull; that was plain enough. One big, dirty hand was clawing at the smooth copper in a vain effort to reach up so that the ends of the fingers could catch in the seam between two of the wooden planks. Although unable to reach the seam, the efforts, somehow, kept the man from going under for good, but he was fast getting weaker when the mate of the big ship heard enough of the disturbance on the adjoining pier to cause him to give one impatient glance in that direction. That glance was enough. To his eye it was

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