THE INFLUENCE OP PLANTS IN BOOMS. 



are temporarily subjected to an abnormal amount 

 of heat, we all know the eagerness with which we 

 seek for cool, soft, and congenial vapours. Gentle 

 moisture softens, cools, and refreshes the skin. 

 Is it not, for instance, delicious to go, in the hot 

 summer, into a cool greenhouse ? Yet, knowing 

 and granting all this, we still suffer ourselves to 

 be suffocated and in a degree scorched by the 

 hot, dry air of our dwelling-rooms. In our dis- 

 tress, on hot summer days, we open our windows 

 to admit what ? The hotter external air. We 

 fan ourselves, and by the process unreflecting as 

 we are we simply set the warm atmosphere of 

 our rooms into motion against the warmer sur- 

 faces of our bodies, the result being a very slight 

 and temporary relief, followed immediately by an 

 increase, to the extent of the warmth extracted 

 from ourselves, of the heat of the air immediately 

 surrounding us. Sometimes we resort to the 

 effectual, but clumsy and inconvenient expedient 

 of hanging wet sheets against our windows on the 

 inside. 



But why all this trouble ? Why do we not 

 follow the simple teaching of Nature, and sur- 



209 



