Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



291 



progress of the noblest of sciences ; and it is also hoped that this institu- 

 tion may be the means of awakening to activity, and leading on to its 

 full development, that native talent in southern youth, which, when it 

 now appears, too often relapses into inaction, for the want of a field for 

 its exercise. 



The principle which the Board of Trustees of this University have dis- 

 tinctly recognised, as that which is to govern all their future policy in 

 building up this institution, is that they will employ all their resources as 

 fast as they become available, in adding to the means and appliances ac- 

 cumulated here for acquiring or imparting knowledge in all its depart- 

 ments ; and that, since the means will not probably be wanting to make 

 the institution equal in all visible respects to the best on the continent, 

 they will not be content to see it occupy, in any particular, an inferior 

 position. 



They are therefore making steady and large appropriations for the in- 

 crease of the library, for additions to the stock of philosophical and chem- 

 ical apparatus, for minerals, shells, &c, &c, all of which are rapidly giv- 

 ing to the University the aspect of an institution of long standing. 



The earnest desire of the Board is also to encourage here a spirit of 

 original investigation, by putting the means of research into the hands of 

 their officers, and it can hardly be doubted that when the arrangements 

 shall have been carried out, which this enlightened policy has suggested, 

 (which will be within two or three years,) Mississippi, through her Uni- 

 versity, will place herself in a very honorable relation to the progress of 

 intellectual improvement in the world. b. 



V. MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



1. Observations on the climates of California ; by Mr. George Bart- 

 lett, (from a letter dated, Providence, June 27, 1856.) — The natural 

 forces which produce the various meteorological phenomena of California, 

 are much less numerous than in the eastern part of the continent, and act 

 on a much larger scale, and they are therefore more easily understood. In 

 fact, with a knowledge of three great causes, the peculiarities of the several 

 climates of California w r ould have been readily anticipated. These are ; 

 1st, the cold ocean current which rolls along the coast from northwest to 

 southeast ; 2d, the direction of the winds ; 3d, that property of air by 

 which its capacity for containing moisture is increased with the elevation 

 of its temperature. The ocean current will no doubt be thoroughly exam- 

 ined in the course of the Coast Survey. Dr. Gibbons, of San Francisco, 

 ascertained at one time its temperature to be 54° Fahrenheit. 



Now, duriug the summer months, as soon as the rays of the sun have 

 warmed the air over the land, it becomes rarified, and the colder and 

 heavier air rushes in under it from the ocean, producing that sea-breeze, 

 which lashes the coast of California with so remarkable regularity, al- 

 most every afternoon throughout the summer months, driving the sand 

 through the air, and compelling people to put on over-coats and kindle 

 fires, even under that cloudless sky and in those low latitudes. As this 

 cold air, from the ocean is warmed by the land, of course its capacity for 

 holding moisture is increased, and instead of there being any tendency to 



