POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



859 



became possible, and duly appeared (in its 

 lowest forras). As the oxygen became more 

 abundant, animal life of a higher order be- 

 came possible. The development of the 

 nervous system has coincided with the in- 

 crease of oxygen in the air. 



Place of the Free Academy. Describing 

 the place of academies in the State school 

 system of New York, Principal William E. 

 Bunten said at the University Convocation 

 that the free academy is a democratic insti- 

 tution in the best sense of the word demo- 

 cratic. It is there that the great bulk of 

 successful business men receive all the train- 

 ing and discipline they ever get in school 

 above the elementary branches ; and an in- 

 creasingly large number pass directly from 

 the academy to the study of law and medi- 

 cine. The great majority of teachers get 

 their only preparation in the academy, either 

 with or without training classes. Again, 

 " many a boy or girl receives in the academy 

 an inspiration, a sort of mental momentum " 

 that sends him to college a thing he never 

 would have thought of had not the free 

 academy existed ; and many a parent is able 

 to give a son or a daughter a collegiate edu- 

 cation because the same academy saves the 

 expense of three or four years at the pre- 

 paratory school, and at the same time keeps 

 the child under the wholesorhe influences of 

 home during these early formative years. 

 The place of the academies is, then, " to pre- 

 pare what may be called the great middle 

 class to enter on their several vocations in 

 life, and to place golden opportunities before 

 the youth of all classes, rich and poor alike." 



The " Hot Winds " of the Plains. An 



instructive study of the summer " hot winds," 

 with which the great plains are occasionally 

 visited, has been published by I. M. Kline, 

 based on a comparison of the recorded obser- 

 vations of about twenty years. These winds 

 are likely to occur between May 15 th and Sep- 

 tember 15 th, but are most frequent during July 

 and August ; they are extremely dry ; their 

 direction corresponds with that of the general 

 movement of the atmosphere at the surface 

 of the earth at the time ; the region of the 

 atmosphere in which they occur has a pro- 

 gressive movement from west to east ; and 

 they occur mostly with low-pressure areas, 



which have moved slowly from the north of 

 Montana southeasterly along the eastern 

 slope for three or four days before they 

 take up a decided movement eastward al- 

 though this condition is subject to variation. 

 A striking characteristic of them is their 

 effect on vegetation, which they always cause 

 to wilt and droop, while the more intensely 

 hot winds burn vegetation to a crisp in a few 

 minutes, without relation to the amount of 

 moisture present in the soil or general at- 

 mosphere. The opinion that there is a 

 special class of these winds, that the heat and 

 dryness are of dynamic origin like that of the 

 foehn and chinook, has been advanced by 

 some, and the present study of all the obser- 

 vations and correlated facts relating to the 

 subject seems to confirm this view. Although 

 the development of these hot winds is wholly 

 independent of drought conditions, they will, 

 of course, become much more intense, extend 

 over more territory, and be more injurious to 

 crops when they occur during the prevalence 

 of a drought than when they occur with sea- 

 sonable weather. The areas affected by 

 them, while they make considerable show, 

 are but a small amount when compared with 

 the whole crop of a State. Occasionally one 

 sixth or even one fourth of two or three 

 counties are completely burned up, but such 

 cases are rare. After a careful consideration 

 of the subject, the author has come to the 

 conclusion that while these winds are often 

 very intense and striking in their nature and 

 damage crops to a considerable extent, yet 

 there are often parts of the United States 

 where the farmer has as great drawbacks to 

 contend with such as overflows, excessive 

 rains, etc. These winds are a feature of the 

 climate of the eastern slope of the Rocky 

 Mountains, and can not be expected to disap- 

 pear or even become less frequent ; neither 

 are they likely to become more so. The best 

 suggestion the author can make for lessening 

 their injurious effects is to fence against 

 them by hedges and plantations of timber. 



Mechanical Work and Chemical Action. 



Some very interesting experiments in the 

 transforming of mechanical w'ork into chem- 

 ical action have been described by M. Carey 

 Lea. Employing a shearing stress, he placed, 

 in one series of experiments, a small quantity 

 of a metallic salt in a mortar, spread it into 



