148 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY, 



summer-time will find an extra shirt or a plaid and a pair of mittens 

 a sufficient protection from almost any weather. The Indians of the 

 Tehuantepec highlands, who work the year round in a breech-clout and 

 a palmetto hat, ascend the icy summit regions of the Sierra Madre 

 with a threadbare blanket as their only cover from cold winds and 

 night frosts ; and our own red-skins j^refer an old-buffalo robe to the 

 best tisfht-fittinof srarments, and inyariably tear the seams of the store- 

 clothes they buy at the post-agencies to make them " lighter," yenti- 

 late them, as it were. Xay, the post-trader of Fort Richardson, on 

 the upper Brazos, assured me that his Kiowa customers neyer bought 

 a suit of clothes without cuttmg the seat out of the pantaloons and 

 slitting the coats from the armpits down to the skirts ! 



If an out-door laborer leayes a warm house on a cold morning, the 

 first contact with the open air is anything but agreeable, but after half 

 an hour's exercise the body warms up from within, and this animal 

 caloric can make a heayy suit of clothes as oppressive in winter as in 

 midsummer ; the gaseous excretions of the skin, after saturating the 

 confined air, are condensed and thus effectually checked the body 

 has to forego the benefits of cutaneous respiration. And herein con- 

 sists the difference between our artificial fleece and the haiiy coat of a 

 wild beast : fur and wool retain the animal warmth but emit the cuta- 

 neous vapors ; a close woven coat stops both. The process of tan- 

 ning, too, stops the pores of the fur-skin, and I have often wondered 

 why our dress-reformers have never tried to construct a fur coat on 

 the brush-maker's plan fastening the hair in little bunches on some 

 strong, net-like texture. By spreading outward, the hair would pre- 

 sent the even surface of the natural fur, and make such a porous brush 

 coat nearly as warm as a common pelisse. Thus far the same end has 

 been most nearly attained by the triple blouse of the Havre 'longshore- 

 men three linen jackets ; the first and third as smooth as a shirt, but 

 the middle one ruffled^ i. e., gathered up in a series of open plaits like 

 a mediaeval lace collar. This arrangement prevents a '' tight fit," and 

 leaves a considerable space on both sides of the middle blouse, and, air 

 being a bad conductor, the three blouses, weighing about three pounds 

 apiece, are actually warmer than a twelve-pound overcoat of thick 

 broadcloth, but fitting the back like the cover of a pin-cushion. On 

 going to work, the porte-faix removes one or two of his blouses, accord- 

 ing to the state of the weather, as the American schoolboy takes off his 

 comforter and unbuttons his jacket before going in for a snow-ball 

 fight. ^ 



A jacket or a short blouse is out and out more sensible than our 

 cumbersome overcoats or the unspeakable tangle-work of frippery and 

 flounces, cross-and-lengthwise wrappings, and intricate fastenings that 

 still form the winter dress of a fashionable lady. The women of 

 Scandinavia and New England (Jenny Lind, Mrs. Everett, Dr. Mary 

 Safford-Blake, etc.) can claim the honor of having initiated the oppo- 



