throughout the various parts of the country. It is therefore important that every one should have a knowledge of these laws; not only because they are advantageous in the affairs of life; but also because they indicate to us the atmospheric conditions of localities through the different seasons of the year. These climatic conditions may be healthful in some localities, and unhealthful in others. The elevation of Lucas county is so great, and its general surface is so free from swamps, and other miasmatic generators, that its atmospheric surroundings are wholesome—are not breeders of diseases and pestilence. Iowa, as a state, lies between the two climatic extremes of the continent, north and south; not subject to the excessive heat of Missouri in the summer; nor to the extreme cold of Minnesota in the winter. Thus, atmospheric extremes in this county are not characteristic. The abundant and continuous fall of snow the past winter of 1880-81, is an exception in this county; and while the annual fall of rain is not usully as large here, as it is in the same latitude farther eastward, the ground rarely suffers from drouth. The winds of the winter are frequently merry; the prevailing ones being the "Manitoba Waves," which lose much of their " blizzard" character before they reach this latitude. Those of spring are tempered as they glide under the warmer sun rays from a southerly direction; and as the seasons change, so do the atmospheric currents. There have been no meteorological observations made in this county, showing a continuous record, for any considerable length of time, from which can be ascertained its precise climatic conditions. However, its range with Council Bluffs, where such observations were made for a long series of years, through means of the general government, is so slight that the following table of mean temperature, for each season, compiled from that point, ranging between the years of 1850 to 1873, will approximate closely to the conditions which prevail here: Elevation in feet above low water mark of Mississippi river. 554 From the above it will be observed that the mean temperature for the year, is precisely that of the spring season. There are but few days in the year, that the movement of the winds are not observed in this locality. Their healthful importance cannot be over estimated. They serve to modify the atmosphere, and distribute its heat and moisture. The malaria which escapes from the decayed vegetation of the prairie—a vegetation which has accumulated for ages upon its wild surface and produced the rich black mould overlying it, is swept away by the winds; thus keeping the atmosphere in a healthy condition. The prevailing winds during the summer are from the south; while the winter winds are from the west and northwest; and during the spring and autumn seasons they are more changeable, coming from all points of the compass, which is likely caused by the equinoctial periods occuriug during those seasons. East winds are quite certain breeders of rain or of snow. The rainfall, too, is another health preserving agent in absorbing, and neutralizing the noxious gasses generated from decaying vegetation, sinks of filth, and various other sources. The following interesting table giving the number of days that it rained and snowed in Lucas county, from 1866 to 1876, inclusive—eleven years-is furnished through the courtesy of Mr. M. J. Burr, of Warren township, by whom the record was kept: During this period it rained and snowed on the days of the week, as follows: The foregoing tables will afford an interesting study of the rain and snow fall during the years of this period. It will be observed that these climatic elements are no respecters of days; that there is not much variation as to the number of the days of the week on which rain and snow fell, during this period. Climate has so much to do with the health and prosperity of a country or civic locality, that it is an important study. It is a frequent observation that ague, malarial fevers and other pestilential diseases find their source in low, malarial and unhealthy localities, which generate the seeds of disease and death in those who dwell within them. Hence, the importance of escaping such localities, which the people of Lucas county have so effectually done. These considerations are important, not only in their effect upon the body, but upon the mind as well. "Health and intelligence, intelligence and good morals, good morals and excellent government, are sisters three, without which neither nations nor men may live and prosper." Upon the question of climatic localities, Dr. Farr, in 1852, presented a very interesting and instructive report to the Register-general of England, in relation to the degenerating and destructive results to those of the human race who dwell in the low malarial localities of the world. In speaking of the destruction of the human race through these causes, Dr. Farr says: "It is destroyed now periodically by five pestilences-cholera, remittent fever, yellow fever, glandular plagues and influenza. The origin or chief seat of the first is the Delta of the Ganges. Of the second, the African and other tropical coasts. Of the third, the low west coast around the Gulf of Mexico, or the Delta of the Mississippi, and the West India Islands. Of the fourth, the Delta of the Nile and the low sea-side cities of the Mediterranean. Of the generating field of influenza nothing certain is known; but * * * * the four great pestilential diseases-cholera, yellow fever, remittant fever and plague, have this property in common; that they begin and are most fatal in low grounds; that their fatality diminishes in ascending the rivers, and is inconsiderable around the river sources, except under such peculiar circumstances as are met with at Erzeroum, where the features of a marshy, sea-side city are seen at the foot of the mountain chain of Ararat. Safety is found in flight to the hills. * As the power of the Egyptians decended from the Thebaid to Memphis, from Memphis to Sais, they gradually degenerated, notwithstanding the elevation of their towns above the high waters of the Nile, their hygienic laws and the hydrographical and other sanitary arrangements which made the country renowned, justly or unjustly, for its salubrity in the days of Herodotus, the poison of the Delta in every time of weakness and successful invasion, gradually gained the ascendancy, and as the cities declined, the canals and the embalments of the dead were neglected, and the plague gained ground. The people, subjugated by Persians, Greeks, Romans, Turks, Mamelukes, became what they have been for centuries, and what they are at the present day. Every race that settled in the Delta degenerated, and was only sustained by immigration. So, likewise, the population on the sites of all the city-states of antiquity, on the coast of Syria, Asia Minor, Atrica, Italy, seated like the people of Rome on low ground under the ruin-clad hills of their ancestors, within reach of fever and plague, are enervated and debased apparently beyond redemption. "The history of the nations on the Mediterranean, on the plains of the Euphrates and the Tigris, the Deltas of the Indus and the Ganges, and the rivers of China, exhibit this great fact: the gradual dissent of races from the highlands, their establishment on the coasts in cities sustained and refreshed for a season by immigration from the interior, their degredation in successive generations under the influence of the unhealthy earth, and their final ruin, effacement or subjugation by new races of conquerers. The causes that destroy individual men, lay cities waste, which, in their nature, are immortal, and silently undermine eternal empires. Every tradition places "On the highlands men feel the loftiest emotions. their origin there. The first nations worshipped there, high on the Indian Caucasus, on Olympus, and on other lofty mountains the Indians and the Greeks imagined the abodes of their highest gods, while they peopled the low underground regions, the grave-land of mortality, with infernal deities. Their myths have a deep signification. Man feels his immortality in the hills." There comes to this locality-in fact, to all the western country—in the autumn, a spell of the most delightful weather, one of the most charming periods of the year, known as "Indian Summer." The mellow rays of the sun, and the soft gentle breezes, as they commingle with the golden or copper colored haze of the atmosphere, awaken dreams, fairy and delusive. Here, this period bears the name of Indian Summer, from the fact that early settlers ascribed this peculiar haze to the burning of the prairies by the Indians at that time. This, however is not the cause, as a similar spell of fine weather prevails in various other countries at this season of the year. In England it is known as "Martinmas Summer," (from St. Martin); in France it is known as "l'ete de St. Martin," (Summer of St. Martin); in Germany, as "Alte Weiber Sommer," (Old Woman's Summer); and along the western coast of South America, as "St. John's Summer." In no portion of the world, however, do we believe this period of the year to be grander than in our own. It "laps all the landscape in its silvery fold" for weeks: and finally marks the changing season-blends autumn into winter. The splendor of the forest is brief, its gorgeous colors are fleeting, but there is joy in the period and the scene, which awakens the purest communings of the soul with this nature's holiday. One who has lived a quarter of a century in Iowa, and passed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, says that nowhere between the two oceans can be observed so many magnificent spectacles at the risings and settings of the sun, as in an Iowa autumn: "Golden clouds, 'dark clouds with silver lining,' atmospheres full of delicious haze-sometimes like floating gold and silver dust-great bands of rosy light shooting upward to the zenith, mark these grand panoramas and make them so beantiful and brilliant. that no one who has been entranced by their grandeur can ever forget them! It is seldom that these free exhibitions of the sublimities of nature ere even equalled in any land, and we doubt whether they are ever surpassed in Italy." This is the "Red Man's Summer," of which the poet * sings: When was the red man's summer? When the rose Hung its first banner out? When the gray rock, Or the brown heath, the radiant Kalmia clothed? Or when the loiterer, by the reedy brooks, Startled to see the proud lobelia glow Like living flame? When through the forest gleam'd Of the magnolia swept deliciously O'er the half laden nerve? No. When the groves In fleeting colors wrote their own decay, And leaves fell eddying on the sharpen'd blast Then the haze, Soft and delusive as a fairy dream, Lapp'd all the landscape in its silvery fold. The quiet rivers that were wont to hide Gorgeous was the time, Yet brief as gorgeous. Beautiful to thee, * Mrs. Sigourney. |