THE FUTURE OF OUR COTTON MANUFACTURE. 315 



3. Where the medium, fine work, 40 to 80, ought to go. 



4. Where the finest, 80 to 200, or upward, must go, unless we 

 can prepare a special atmosphere for each class of work. 



I looked over a few numbers of the reports of the Royal 

 Meteorological Society of Great Britain, and, while I find there 

 are great variations in the relative humidity of the atmosphere in 

 different parts of Great Britain, the changes are not as great as 

 they are in this country, even between morning and night. I 

 can not find any midday record as yet. I have sent for one. 



Neither have I been able to find a record of a manufacturing 

 town, but I should infer that the conditions of Buxton, one of the 

 stations, might correspond to Oldham, Preston, etc. Buxton is, 

 as you know, an inland health-resort on the peaks of Derbyshire, 

 not far from Manchester, about a thousand feet above the sea- 

 level, not much higher than Oldham, and facing the Gulf Stream. 

 The mean temperature of the year at 9 a. m. is 44*15 ; 9 p. m., 

 42*5 ; extreme temperature, 1888, 79"2 ; mean relative humidity 

 at 9 a. M., 90 per cent ; 9 p. M., 92 per cent ; highest point, 95 per 

 cent; lowest, 80 per cent; variation, 15 per cent. No wonder it 

 rains easily where the atmosphere is within less than 10 per cent 

 of the saturation point almost all the time. 



Since dictating the foregoing statement, Mr. Clayton, of the 

 Blue Hill Observatory, has kindly computed the mean relative 

 humidity of the atmosphere at Greenwich, England, from data 

 within his possession, for the years 1884, 1885, and 1886. The 

 mean of the hours 7 a. m. and 3 P. m. is 87 per cent ; the extreme 

 variation, from 95 per cent of humidity at 7 a. m., October, 1886, to 

 49 at 3 p. m., August, 1884. As I have before stated, the changes 

 at Greenwich are very much greater than they are in Lancashire. 

 I hope to procure figures for Lancashire, which I have sent for, 

 before this report is published. 



I have thus given some of the apparent advantages of New 

 England over the South. I will now present some of the advan- 

 tages of the Piedmont plateau, of the foot-hills, and of the upland 

 country of the South, for the manufacture of coarse fabrics, even 

 though the extreme of heat in the summer months is less condu- 

 cive to continuous work throughout the year than the extreme of 

 cold of our winter climate, and even though the humidity, both 

 absolute and relative, of that section of our country is very much 

 more variable than upon the south shore of New England. 



While pointing out the advantage upon coarse numbers, I 

 also call your attention to the indications that the demand of this 

 country for coarse and unbleached fabrics is relatively diminish- 

 ing while the consumption of the finer bleached and printed 

 fabrics is relatively increasing. As soon as people can afford to 

 wear a " b'iled " shirt rather than a gray cotton, or a fancy satine 



