Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/329

Rh 3. Where the medium, fine work, 40 to 80, ought to go. 4. Where the finest, 80 to 200, or upward, must go, unless we can prepare a special atmosphere for each class of work.

I looked over a few numbers of the reports of the Royal Meteorological Society of Great Britain, and, while I find there are great variations in the relative humidity of the atmosphere in different parts of Great Britain, the changes are not as great as they are in this country, even between morning and night. I can not find any midday record as yet. I have sent for one.

Neither have I been able to find a record of a manufacturing town, but I should infer that the conditions of Buxton, one of the stations, might correspond to Oldham, Preston, etc. Buxton is, as you know, an inland health-resort on the peaks of Derbyshire, not far from Manchester, about a thousand feet above the sea-level, not much higher than Oldham, and facing the Gulf Stream. The mean temperature of the year at 9 is 44·15; 9, 42·5; extreme temperature, 1888, 79·2; mean relative humidity at 9 , 90 per cent; 9 , 92 per cent; highest point, 95 per cent; lowest, 80 per cent; variation, 15 per cent. No wonder it rains easily where the atmosphere is within less than 10 per cent of the saturation point almost all the time.

Since dictating the foregoing statement, Mr. Clayton, of the Blue Hill Observatory, has kindly computed the mean relative humidity of the atmosphere at Greenwich, England, from data within his possession, for the years 1884, 1885, and 1886. The mean of the hours 7 and 3  is 87 per cent; the extreme variation, from 95 per cent of humidity at 7, October, 1886, to 49 at 3 , August, 1884. As I have before stated, the changes at Greenwich are very much greater than they are in Lancashire. I hope to procure figures for Lancashire, which I have sent for, before this report is published.

I have thus given some of the apparent advantages of New England over the South. I will now present some of the advantages of the Piedmont plateau, of the foot-hills, and of the upland country of the South, for the manufacture of coarse fabrics, even though the extreme of heat in the summer months is less conducive to continuous work throughout the year than the extreme of cold of our winter climate, and even though the humidity, both absolute and relative, of that section of our country is very much more variable than upon the south shore of New England.

While pointing out the advantage upon coarse numbers, I also call your attention to the indications that the demand of this country for coarse and unbleached fabrics is relatively diminishing while the consumption of the finer bleached and printed fabrics is relatively increasing. As soon as people can afford to wear a "b'iled" shirt rather than a gray cotton, or a fancy satine