Saturday, December 20, was a splendid holiday for the school-children of
Philadelphia. All through the week they had been reading of the
receptions given to General Grant in honor of his return from his
journey around the world, and now they were to take part in a welcome of
their own.
There was, in the first place, a grand street procession of boys, to the
number of nearly four thousand--quite an army, in fact--who marched in
four great divisions, each headed by a band. The boys were well drilled,
and stepped gayly to the music, with soldier-like bearing and precision.
As the General rode between their lines he was greeted with enthusiastic
cheers. No doubt he was as much gratified by this boyish welcome as by
the grand military display that attended his entry into the city.
After reviewing the lads, General Grant was escorted to the Academy of
Music, where almost as many school-girls as there were boys in the
procession were assembled to give him a reception of a gentler kind. It
must have been a pretty sight--more than three thousand lassies, all in
their teens, and all in their best attire. As soon as he appeared, two
thousand sweet voices joined in the grand melody of "Hail to the Chief!"
which was sung with enthusiasm and fine effect. The General acknowledged
the courtesy in a short address. Several other speeches were made,
interspersed with patriotic songs.
Of all the festivities of the week, the one General Grant will probably
remember with most pleasure will be the reception given him by the boys
and girls of the public schools.
"OLD PROBABILITIES."
The next time the Professor came, it was in a dense fog. The morning was
so damp and disagreeable that we hardly expected to see him. He did not
disappoint us, but seemed to have come almost before the sun was fairly
up, it was so dark.
"What makes a fog?" asked Gus.
"I meant to have talked about something else, Gus," answered the
Professor; "but you have chosen a subject for me. It is a very good one,
too, and quite suitable to the occasion. Fogs are nothing more nor less
than clouds. They usually float aloft, a mile or more, high, but
sometimes drift down to the ground and lie all around us. They are so
light that they rise and fall from very slight causes, when there is no
wind. A brisk breeze soon drives them off."
"But what are clouds made of?" inquires May, who has become such a
favorite with the Professor that she never hesitates to stop him when
she wants anything explained.
"Clouds, May, are made up of small particles of water or vapor slightly
chilled. When vapor or steam is hot, it can not be seen, but is
invisible like the air. You have noticed the steam from a tea-kettle.
Near the spout it is hidden, but a little farther off, where it has got
cooled by mixing with the air, it begins to look gray, like a cloud. If
the kettle be allowed to boil a long while, so that a large quantity of
steam is formed, it will collect on the walls and window-panes, where,
becoming thoroughly chilled, it turns again to water, the same as it was
when first poured into the kettle. So it is with the clouds
out-of-doors; when the sun comes out bright and hot, it dries them up,
as we say; that is, it heats them so much that they become invisible.
Cool air mingling with them brings them into sight again; and, if cool
enough, it condenses."
"Oh dear!"
The Professor laughs. "There can be no doubt about it, May, science is
full of big words. We will say that the cool wind makes the clouds heavy
by squeezing them together, and sends them down in drops of rain. This
is called condensing."
May rewards the Professor for his simple explanation with such a bright
glance that he proceeds with an illustration.
"You have made soap-bubbles, and seen how they will float around in the
air, and sometimes be wafted clear up above the trees, until they get
broken, when they come down drops of water. The particles of vapor that
form clouds are little bubbles, or hollow spheres filled with air. When
a cold wind crushes them, they become solid, unite with one another, and
fall as rain-drops. Cold water is much heavier than air; but water made
hot by fire or by the sun, and turned into vapor, is lighter. In time of
a fog the vapor is just warm enough to have the same weight as the air,
so that it neither rises nor falls, but remains quietly near the
ground."
"Professor," remarked Joe, "did you not say that when the sun came out
bright and hot, it dried up the fog? and is not the fog the very thing
that keeps the sun from coming out?"
"Yes, my dear; but fogs usually gather at night, and when the sun rises
in the morning, he goes to work at once to heat them up and make them
disappear. But when he finds them very thick, and is hindered by cold
air, he may be a good part of the day in working his way through, or he
may even have to go down before he is able to show himself. Generally,
however, he gets help from the wind, and then the fog goes off in a
hurry."
"Is there no way," asked Gus, "of knowing when the wind will spring up,
and give us some clear cold weather? Ted Wynant's cousin has an
ice-boat, and we are all waiting for a ride on the river."
"There is Old Probabilities," said Jack; "but he can only tell a day or
two ahead, and seems rather uncertain at that, and afraid to express a
decided opinion. It is a little this or a little that, a little cloudy
or a little cooler, and the wind is to blow a little in nearly every
direction. Most people laugh when they talk about him, as if he was not
of much account, or had grown stupid in his old age. If he would only
foretell a hurricane or a deluge, and bring it around, why, then we
would know what he is good for."
"Such a test would be rather costly," said the Professor, smiling. "It
is better to give the old gentleman a little time to establish his
reliableness; for in truth he is yet very young--a mere child of eight
or ten years. And considering that he undertakes to forewarn our whole
country as to the coming weather, so that everybody will have time to
get ready for it, we must admit that he is doing all that his age
warrants."
"Where does he live?" asked Gus.
"We have been talking somewhat absurdly," replied the Professor.
"Instead of a single person, there is what is called the United States
Signal Service, which has been in operation eight or ten years, and
comprises some two hundred or more men, scattered all over the country,
from Maine to California, and from the Gulf of Mexico away out to the
Northwestern lakes. The men at these various stations watch the weather
very closely, and at a particular time every day send word regarding it
by telegraph to the main office at Washington, where the different
reports are carefully studied, and an opinion formed as to what the
weather is likely to be in different sections of the country during the
next twenty-four hours or more, and the result is then published in the
daily newspapers and at the numerous post-offices throughout the land.
The matter is yet somewhat uncertain, and occasionally mistakes are
made."
"But will they ever get so that they can tell exactly every time?"
"We hope so. The warnings given are usually right, and are becoming more
and more reliable every year. In 1872 it was estimated that about
seventy-seven out of a hundred of them were found to be correct; more
recently they have been declared accurate about ninety times in a
hundred. So, you see, good progress is being made; and the Signal
Service system is becoming very useful to the nation, for property and
life can often be saved from destruction when the approach of a severe
storm is known.
"The New York _Herald_ has encouraged the study of the weather for many
years, and its managers now send word to England by the Atlantic cable
when a storm is to be expected there. They have lately sent notice of so
many ugly ones, which have promptly arrived, that our English cousins
are complaining of the unfair treatment of the _Herald_."
"Are they really so absurd?" asked Jack.
"Yes," said the Professor; "they facetiously intimate that when
Providence controlled the weather they fared well enough; but that since
the _Herald_ has undertaken to run that department they have been doomed
to storms, fogs, and rain. To give an instance of the faith, Jack, that
the English people put in our Signal Service, there is a story told of
an English lady who last autumn desired to give a lawn party. The season
was an unusually rainy one, and such entertainments had, in consequence,
been given up. The lady, however, sent her invitations, and calmly
announced that the day she had selected would be clear. When asked how
she had dared to take such a risk, she replied, 'There was no risk
whatever; I had telegraphed to the man in New York.'"
The children all laughed, and it was some time before the Professor
could quiet them sufficiently to add the few words that concluded his
little lecture.
"The most violent storms have been found generally to whirl in circles,
and are called cyclones. In some parts of the world they are very
disastrous. One occurred in India in 1864 that destroyed 45,000 lives in
a single day. Ten years earlier, when the English and French were at war
with Russia, a storm was observed to begin in France and to be moving
eastward. Timely warning was sent to the allied fleet in the Black Sea.
The storm came with such terrific violence that, had it not been
expected, it would probably have destroyed one of the most splendid
navies that ever rode the waters, and perhaps have changed the issue of
the war."