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Show NATURE'S WAYS. I To make the seasons in the temperate zones, I the sunbeams have to strike the earth at differ B ent angles in different months. The sun is no B further away from us in wintor than in summer, B but the coquettish old arth leans away on its B axis inclination and the difference in the effect B of the sunbeams is the same that the young man B experiences when his best girf will not permit B him to kiss her cheek or lips, but compels him B to content himself by caressing her back hair I This leads to a great many disturbing phenomena I Nature placed in the soil all the elements needed I to sustain animal life on the earth, but likewise I provided that the element of moisture must be I provided in order to quicken the latent germs I into life. To accomplish this, more of the I earth's surface was devoted to water than to land and much of the land surface was tossed up into hills and' mountains that nature's plan of irrigation irriga-tion might be carried out successfully. A part of the same plan was to make the atmosphere around the earth the most elastic of substances and to provide that the air snould expand with heat and contract with cold. With this arrangement, arrange-ment, when any portion of the air becomes heated and expanded it necessarily becomes lighter than the surrounding air and rises up. Then the colder air rushes in to fill the vacuum and it is in that way that winds are born. Another provision of nature is that when the sunbeams fall upon the breast of a warm ocean the thirsty air above the sea goes down with the sunbeams and loads them up with moisture, than the air -expanded by the heat, rises up, carrying car-rying the moisture with It, loads It on floating clouds and when enough of the air becomes heat ed it rises in great volumes and rushes away Then it is that seamen have to trim or reef the sails of their ships for there is a gale blowing I Well, some of these clouds are tossed upon the shore, and striking the cooler air of the highlands, high-lands, or a cool high strata of air, they are compressed com-pressed as the hand compresses a wet sponge and their moisture is precipitated in rain or snow It is in that way that the springs and the rivers are fed, in that way, in the far north, the glacier is formed, in that way the germs in the soil are quickened and the harvests are assured. But with the changing seasons there is more or less confusion or seeming confusion in the sublime order. For instance, for a month past, we have seen the efforts of the sunbeams to resume re-sume business with the earth and the counter efforts ef-forts of old winter to maintain his hold upon the world. When the relenting world this year turned to receive the spring kisses of the sunbeams, sun-beams, winter in this region was intrenched more solidly than were the Russians at Port Arthur three months ago. His mantle of snow was thick upon the earth, his cold held the mountain tops in Its grasp, his frost was everywhere, and the winds he called down from the north were icy in their greetings. When the sunbeams warmed a little the air of the valley, it was obliged by a natural law to rise up and float away; then the winter sent down its icy air exultingly and with it the frost to undo all that the sunbeams had done, and the coal venders laughed. This con test lias been going on now ever since the groundhog ground-hog came the second time from his hole But these sunbeams are really the angels at the door of the sepulchre of the winter and they are win ning their way They have driven the snows away, the earth has felt their presence ant1 giowr warm, the lawns and the foliage have donned their emerald robes and a few flowers have appeared ap-peared to meet the sunbeam's kisses. In a little while longer all the blooms of spring will be in joyous evidence. The baffled winter has retreated sullenly and with many a protest back to its lair in the north. The fields are growing green with the plants which will make the harvest. But in a few months the fickle earth Will turn away again its face, and compel the" sunbeams to be content with its back hair. Then will be seen again the coming of the winter's reconnois-ance reconnois-ance First there will be the frost and the verdure ver-dure will turn to gold; the haze of the autumn will wrap the world as in a robe; next the storm-tones storm-tones wMl sound along the air and finally the winter will return again triumphant with its fierce winds and blinding snow, and the weary earth will go back and hide itself within its white sepulchre. And it will all be a lesson to man that there is no rest, but perpetual change; that his spring and the fruition of his harvest are but transitory changes, that after that will -De the night and the winter, and' that as the chill comes on and the springs of his life grow muffled, only faith can place the pillow of hope beneath his tired head that there are still angels at the door of the sepulchre, and that for him there will be another spring. |
