10 Kansas academy of Science. 



been reported as 30', or I'lO^' per year. At Lincoln Center, from 1874 to 1884, the 

 change was 33^ or 3^18^' per year. Observations extending over shorter periods, 

 when coupled with these, make me think that the rate is as above stated, 3'' per year. 

 In order to secure results that can be compared, there ought to be established at 

 each county seat a true meridian, permanently marked. The lines should be laid 

 out carefully by competent persons, and with better instruments than are usually 

 found in the hands of surveyors. The State by an appropriation could well provide 

 for the actual expenses of such work, and the University could furnish the instru- 

 ments and the men to do it. Then each surveyor should receive from the county a 

 just compensation for his labor in taking the quarterly observations, and these 

 should be taken with more system than is now done. To call the attention of the 

 surveyor to the present law is of no avail, as the University has proved by sending 

 out yearly a table of "Pole Star Times" and asking for compliance with the law. 



NOTE ON THE SECOND SETTING OF CEMENT. 



BY B. J. DALTON AND F. O. MARVIN, LAWRENCE. 



It is proposed to study the action of cements, which, after having set, have again 

 been mixed up into mortar and allowed to permanently harden. Some masons claim 

 that this second setting of the cement increases its strength. On looking up what 

 has been written on the subject, we find that modern engineers in their specifica- 

 tions demand that mortar which has set shall not be used. Yet we have found no 

 statement of reasons, nor any record of tests comparing the strength of samples of 

 the same cement; some having set once and others twice. We shall at this time re- 

 port progress only, as too small a number of briquetts have been broken so far to 

 enable us to draw safe conclusions. A full description of methods and results is 

 then reserved for a future report, merely noticing now that the indications are that, 

 with the cements used, a second setting injures their strength. 



A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF "HOT WINDS." 



BY SERGT. T. B. JENNINGS, 

 Signal Corps, Ass't Director Kansas Weather Service. 



In the study of this phenomenon, the first question to decide is, what are "hot 

 winds"? A careful search through all the meteorological works at my command 

 fails to reveal any definition. Shall every warm wind that proves a destructive blast 

 to vegetation be termed a "hot wind"? I use the term "proves" under protest, be- 

 cause there are other conditions the effects of which are sometimes ascribed to "that 

 hot wind." 



In 1866, my first year in Kansas, we had in the eastern part of the State some 

 "hot winds." During that summer our prevailing wind for about 60 days was south- 

 west, and in that time we had a hot wind of eight days' duration, each day the tem- 

 perature in Franklin county rising to upwards of 100°, and not falling below 80° 

 during the nights. On the fourth day a long-range thermometer was laid across 

 two sticks about six inches above the ground, on a path where there was not even 

 dead grass. Its mercurial column rapidly extended, until it finally reached the lim- 

 its of the instrument, 140°, when, after enduring the confinement for a short period, 

 it found escape by bursting the bulb, and ended the experiment. The time was 



