280 [Assembly 



Mr. Bell was followed in his remarks by Professor Mapes, who 

 said that he had a long time observed that animals materially 

 changed their condition by being transported from one place to 

 another. He said, we find that animals wliich range hills and 

 mountains have a broad full chest, while those in low sections 

 have small chests and are subject to consumption ; by climbing 

 hills and mountains the chest is made healthy — the air is more 

 rarilied and expands the air-cells of the lungs — ^the blood is bet- 

 ter purified as it passes through the lungs, by the mountain air, 

 and the air itself is much more pure and free from miasma and 

 noxious gases on the mountain and hill sides than in the valleys. 

 He thought that all animals grew to greater perfection in high 

 grounds than in low situations. Cattle improved better and 

 faster onmountain pastures than in plains. 



Dairies furnished sweeter and better milk on hilly situations 

 than in low grounds. 



The animals kept on hills were healthier and were more easily 

 fattened with the same food on hills than in low situations. 



Ameeicj^n Institute, I 

 Farmers' Club, May Tlth, 1851. \ 



Judge Van Wvck in the Chair j Henry Meigs, Secretary. 



The Secretary remarked that we arc constantly using the word 

 climate without recollecting precisely the meaning of it. I there- 

 fore offer the following extracts from our books in relation to it. 



The word is from the Greek word xXivoj to incline. 



The ancient geographers divided the space between the poles 

 and the equator into thirty equal parts, on both sides of the equa- 

 tor, and called them climates or inclinations. Twenty-four of 

 these extended from the equator to the polar circle — the other 

 six from thence to the pole. The first they called half-hour cli- 

 mates, because, from one to another, the longest day receives an 

 augmentation of half an hour. The others were called month 

 climates, because, between any two of them, the diflference of time 



