1 62 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



needed, hut liow is tlic best wav to brines it about? Two questions are 

 involvetl : what is right .- and how can we accomplish the right without 

 running counter to a conservative element which we can not overcome if 

 we would ? 



He had become convinced tliat tlie best thing to do was to secure 

 tlie passage of a law regulating the number of pounds in a bushel of fruit. 



The amendment of Prof. Turner was lost. 



The question recurring" upon the adoption of the substitute of Mr. 

 Dunlap, prevailed. 



Mr. J. II. TiCF.. of St. r.ouis. a member of the Committee of this 

 Society on Meteorology, then read, liv ri'ipiest. a paper which he had pre- 

 upon this sultject. 



METEOROI.OCIC.M. KFFFXTS OF FORESTS. 



j\fr. President^ Ladies, and Gcntlcnioi : 



My object is to discuss a subject which lias had, and ever will have, 

 an important liearing on human well-being; which in the past has 

 rendered man a fugitive and a \-agabon(l on the face of the earth, and 

 which, in the future, will continue to scourge him, until experience and 

 reason w^ill bring him in harmony with Nature. 



This sidiject is the great law which holds a climatic correlation 

 between moisture and the eartii's vesture, and between aridity and its 

 nakedness. The ignorance of this law, or of its non-obser\'ance, has, in 

 the past, indicted an untold amount of miserv upon man. and u]:ion its 

 knowledge and observance will depend his future prospeiity and happi- 

 ness. If this can be shown, then, if woe betide him hereafter, he must 

 acknowledge it as a just jiimishment for his delincjuency ; and if weal, 

 he will have the consciousness and satisfaction of knowing that it is a 

 reward for his faithfulness and obedience. 



As il is impossible to lix man's ad\ent iipon the earth, so it were 

 futile to attempt it. All we do know is, that he appeared in the tertiary 

 period, and was cotemporaneous w ith the primitive horse and mastodon, 

 because stone implements have been found with figures of lioth engraveil 

 )ipon them. I>ut how long ago that has been — whether ten thousand 

 or ten hundred thousand vears, no one can tell or ever will know*. 



In the time when Northern Europe was yet submerged — when the 

 reindeer roa:iied t)ver the Alps — man was there, (Kvelling in cav'es, and 

 his bones lie mingled with those of the primiti\'e horse, of the reindeer, 

 the mastodon and hos bifroyis^ making it probable that these animals 

 served him for food. 



But in the j^rogress of time, either from increase in intelligence, or 

 of numbers, he forsook the caves and built for himself dwellings con- 

 sisting of four large stones for the sides and one for a cover. This is 

 called in archieology, the megalithic, that is the big stone age. These 

 houses, buried in the soil, are found from the British Isle to farthest 

 India, and south io the Cape of (lood Hope. Evidently these structures 

 were co-extensive with the human race at that period. 



