Seventeenth Annual Meeting. 101 



I >r. < Mto regards the sense of smell as one of the very best means of detecting this 

 acid. Orfida, Lounsdale and Christison coincide with him, and our investigation points 

 in the same direction. Profs. Wormley and Taylor, however, consider a chemical test 

 more reliable and delicate. 



It will be noticed that the sense of smell seems to he more delicate in males than in 

 females. This result coincides with that previously obtained by Profs. Bailey and 

 Nichols, while the females possessed a more delicate sense of taste. 



We are able to detect smaller quantities of substances with which we are perfectly 

 familiar, as oil of wintergreen. Without doubt education has much to do with the deli- 

 cacy of this special sense, for in addition to the fact that persons who have occasion to 

 use the sense are more skillful, we have noticed that some who at first cannot tell Prussic 

 acid from ammonia soon learn to distinguish readily between them. 



IS THE RAINFALL OF KANSAS INCREASING? 



BY PROF. F. H. SNOW, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS. 



In the present paper attention is called to the fact of an increase of rainfall rather 

 than to the various theories which have been advanced to explain such increase, or to 

 show that there ought to be an increase. 



Geologists, physicists and astronomers are harmonious in accepting it as an estab- 

 lished fact that the earth, in common with all other worlds in the universe, is slowly pass- 

 ing through a series of changes from an original nebular mass of intensely high temper- 

 ature to an entirely solid mass of very low temperature. The sun and the larger planets 

 of our system illustrate the early stages in this series of changes. The earth is in an 

 intermediate condition between the two extremes, and the earth's moon represents the 

 extreme of entire solidity, in which the waters and the atmosphere which once covered 

 and surrounded its surface have been absorbed within its mass, and a very low tempera- 

 ture continually and everywhere prevails. There can be no doubt that the earth is very 

 gradually approaching the moon's condition, and that sometime in the far distant future, 

 how many millions of years hence no man can determine, its atmosphere and surface 

 waters will entirely disappear and a low temperature prevail, even in its tropical regions, 

 far exceeding the cold of the coldest Arctic winters in the present age. There can be 

 no doubt, therefore, that, considered with reference to long periods of time, the rainfall 

 of the earth is diminishing. If prehistoric man, 10,000 years ago, had kept scientific 

 records of the rainfall of his time, and it were possible to compare these records with 

 those of the present day, it would be found that a considerable reduction of the average 

 annual precipitation has been made in the period named. Even a thousand years might 

 show :i perceptible decrease. But in so short a period as the lifetime of a single gener- 

 ation of men, or even in an entire century, the average annual rainfall of the entire 

 globe has probably been reduced to so slight an extent as to be expressed by a very few 

 hundredths of an inch. 



Yet, although the entire movement is in the direction of a reduction of the rainfall, 

 there are without doubt local oscillations in consequence of man's influence upon nature, 

 which in some cases result in a more rapid decrease than would otherwise be accom- 

 plished by the unaided forces of nature, and in other cases within limited areas secure 

 an actual increase in tin rainfall. I believe the State of Kansas furnishes an apt illus- 

 tration hi' a change of the latter sort. Here the circumstances have been extremely 

 favorable to such a change. Thirty years ago the Territory of Kansas was not occupied 

 by the white man, and if we except a few acres cultivated by the Delaware Indians, no 

 portion of her soil had been turned up by the plow. Her entire area was included 



