Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 22.djvu/256

244 I almost started at finding in the large instrument every member of its long rain-band group, unless it were a vanishing trace of one or two of the strongest, utterly gone; while the two D-lines were in their accustomed strength, but far greater clearness, for now they were all alone in the field save the ultra-thin solar nickel line between them and one or two others, equally thin and solar on their blue side. The stages of perceptible shade of water-vapor lines which had thus been swept away, between their this day's invisibility, and their tremendous strength no longer before than the previous Friday, might have been expressed by a scale not divided into three parts only, but into thirty; and implied such a very unusual amount of absence of water-vapor, that I not only felt sure of no rain falling either next day, or perhaps for several days after, but that the weather must also be coming on colder as well. Therefore it was that I took the step of instantly writing as I did to a local paper, promising the perplexed farmers dry weather at last, though probably sharp and cold, to get in their crops.

And how was that expectation fulfilled? Various meteorologists in different parts of the country have already declared themselves well satisfied with it. But I would now beg further attention to the little daily register already quoted, showing that from and including that day, Monday, September 4th, up to and including the next Saturday, not a drop of rain fell at the observatory. Between the following Sunday and Monday, a drizzle, but only amounting to 0·04 inch, occurred, and after that there were three more days equally dry with the preceding ones. But on Thursday, the 14th, the rain-band reappeared in both spectroscopes in all its force; rain began to fall the same day, and next day's measure at the observatory amounted to more than half an inch. Wherefore it is to be hoped that the farmers had busied themselves effectively while the dry weather lasted, for the return of these spectral lines of watery vapor showed that their autumn opportunity was then gone by.—London Times.

 

T is a recognized fact that the anatomy and physiology of animals have afforded valuable help in the study of the human constitution. We might, indeed, say that physiology, toxicology, and therapeutics are based upon experiments which have been made on animals. Why, then, have we halted at this stage? Why has it not occurred to medical experts in criminal law to study the phenomena of crimes 