THE KANSAS WEATHER SERVICE. 575 
ganization and intelligence as ourselves ; for, since man is made in the image of 
God, then no other beings outside ot heaven can be superior to man ; yet man 
would die of heat on Mercury and of cold on Saturn. 
Furthermore, if the heat from the sun is heat radiated from a burning body, 
the nearer we approach the sun the hotter it would be : yet this is not found to 
be the case, for the higher one goes on a mountain or in a balloon the colder it 
gets, until, if a point beyond our atmosphere in stellar space could be reached, 
the temperature would be found 500 degrees or more below the freezing point. 
But to meet these difficulties let us suppose that our sun, and all other suns 
are centers of electric power; or, great electric machines, which throw out elec- 
tric rays that emit light but yield no heat, until heat is generated by the friction 
of those rays as they pass through the resisting medium of our atmosphere; and 
that the heat so generated is in proportion to that resistence as caused by the 
greater or less density and humidity of the atmosphere. 
The revolution of the sun upon its axis and through its orbit maintaining its 
electric power and luminosity without requiring material substances for its fuse, 
would go on shining forever and with unvarying brilliancy. 
All planets, then, having atmospheres may have temperatures the same as 
that of the earth, whether they be as near the sun as Mercury or as remote as 
Neptune. 
This electric hypothesis is sustained by other familiar facts, such as the 
striking resemblance in color and appearance of our electric light with the sun 
light, and by the sympathetic disturbance of the magnetic needle upon the earth 
whenever eruptive disturbances occur in the atmosphere of the sun. 
The earth being ninety odd millions of miles distant from the sun, and 
light traveling at the rate of nearly 12,000,000 miles a minute, it takes about 
eight minutes for the light of the sun to reach the earth. 
Therefore when the astronomer observes through his telescope a disturb- 
ance in the atmosphere of the sun he knows that that disturbance has actually 
occurred some eight minutes before it became visible to his eye; but simultane- 
ously with his seeing the disturbance, the observer by his side notes a perturbed 
deflection of the magnetic needle, showing conclusively that the subtle influence 
from the sun that has thus disturbed the needle has either been sped upon the 
wings of light from the sun to the earth or else be one and the self-same thing 
as the light and heat of the sun, which I believe it to be." — Cor. Globe- Democrat. 
REPORT FROM OBSERVATIONS TAKEN AT CENTRAL STATION, 
WASHBURN COLLEGE, TOPEKA, KANSAS. 
BY PROF. J. T. LOVEWELL, DIRECTOR. 
During the period embraced in this report, from November 20th to Decem- 
ber 20th, we have had dry cool weather, but owing to the very large rainfall in 
former months the humidity has been much higher than the rainfall of the month 
