contest with Nature, in her harder aspects? Well, winter is declared, on all sides, to be the most enjoyable season, and, sure enough, winter is coming once more here in the far North-west. But what of it to him who, if tempted for a moment to regret the fascination of warmer latitudes, has power to draw upon his own experience for comparisons and contrasts; who can tell a grasshopper from a tarantula―a caterpillar from the savage and hateful centipede. I have been a resident of the tropics, and I can remember the huge spider, which on the wall above my head, in the morning, seemed to spread out like a tea-saucer in diameter, the disgusting and terrific reptile who had bitten me on the lip during the night, and whom I slew with a feeling of wrath which for the time being extended itself to everything tropical.

And then that lassitude born of heat and of half-developed fevers, of a too careless exposure to the burning rays of the sun; or to the deadly miasma and dews of night; that benumbing apathy which, keeping one to couch or hammock, makes him pray all the day long for the night breeze, and which, sleeping, makes him dream of the grateful winds and even the snows of the north. In this connection, who has not heard of the English sailor who, worn out with his long and tedious man-of-war cruise up the Mediterranean, tired out with the heat and monotonous sunshine of that region, aroused his fellows one rainy and tempestuous morning with the glad greeting, at the hatchway: "Tumble up, lads, tumble up! Here's weather as is weather; none of your infernal blue sky."

Happiness is by comparison, at best; and our experience is, that life is full of compensations, the fact in one direction being established, that if men will seek and occupy rich lands in low latitudes, they have, in most cases, to take along with them those disabilities which come of poisoned or corrupted blood, with the cadaverous complexion and varying pulse and spirits, such as fevers, active or slow, are sure to produce. Besides, the experiences of Dr. Livingstone, of Baker, and of numberless others, teach this; and if we want examples and authorities closer home, let us take those of our troops in the swamps of Florida and the Carolinas, or other of the Gulf or cotton States, during the recent

war.

Nay, in my own experience, I need not go so far south as that.

Crossing Kentucky on horseback once, I struck a high and rocky ridge back of the town of Richmond, and toward Cumberland Gap, or in that direction, where the land appeared so very poor, that it seemed indeed a struggle for anything of value to grow.

Whilst the landlady was preparing what proved to be a capital breakfast, I began condoling her case, in that she was a resident of so poor a locality. But I soon discovered that I need not have done it. "Poor as it was," she said, "many of her neighbors who had moved to the richer portions of Arkansas or Missouri, had returned thither to the Kentucky ridge, because they could get here what they could not get in their projected new homes— they were sure in the old places, of good air and water." It was one of the many striking lessons of life one meets with, out in the great world; and I received it with all docility, for I was sure the good woman was right.

If the seeker after an eligible and absolutely unexceptionable home, must have, as a condition precedent, that desideratum with many a "mild climate," by which is understood a warm one, let him remember that heat and moisture, however favorable to vegetable life and pecuniary thrift, are in most instances the deadly foes of human life and health. And if the climate be dry, so that, as in portions of the Pacific States, nothing will grow but with irrigation, let it be noted that in case of drought, or even in ordinary seasons, this condition of things, except for fruits, is but playing at cropping; it cannot, except in rare cases or seasons, produce the results constantly achieved here in Minnesota, or in other of the States of the North-west.

Nothing is more certain than that one of the greatest blessings, and, indeed, marked necessities with mankind, is an abundant supply and distribution of pure, fresh water; and in a country so far north that it cannot become the deadly foe to human life, as it too often proves to be in the tropics or approximating them, it is a blessing indeed. Needful for all great enterprises that advance civilization and society; indispensable to saw and grind, and to a successful cultivation of the great crops of cereals; needful, further, to insure river transportation to bear cheaply from a country its farm produce, no country can, under ordinary circumstances, concentrate or command a large and industrious population unless well watered; and if well watered and hot, we aver once

more, it cannot be healthy, any more than can portions of Africa and South America, proverbial for those miasmatic conditions and tendencies that are destructive to human life.

Where health can be assured, then, as in this State of Minnesota, water in abundance is an unspeakable blessing; and thinking of it in that light, let the reader consider for a moment, the remarkable experience of Captain Eyre on the coast of Australia. Committed to a land journey of fifteen hundred miles along the coast, on an exploring expedition, he related the amazing fact, that not in the whole distance did he find a river or streamlet running into the sea; and with his one or two companions, they only sustained life in that long and fearful trip, by digging in the sand at the bases of the hills, which giving them a few quarts of water over night, by filtration, kept them from absolutely perishing. Fancy, then, what our own country would be with no river running into the ocean from Maine to Texas, and we may thus form some approximate idea of a country so vast without water. Remembering that from the Atlantic coast line to the Rocky mountains at least, fresh water is mostly accessible at all points, and we may well be thankful as a nation, that our "lines are cast in pleasant places."

In view of all this, need we of this latitude regret that if we are subject to winter with its ice and snows, we have not the moisture, and heat and miasma generated of these in more southern latitudes. With water supplied in prodigal abundance, we may well survey the scene with satisfaction and delight, because the air is dry, and all the conditions such as to conduce to the highest health. Almost uniform, as the temperature is when the winter once sets in, the simple fact that it hardly ever gets above the freezing point, makes the cold hardly felt; certainly prevents largely the discomfort so generally experienced in milder, but more moist climates, and confessedly so often detrimental to health. Let the invalid, then, as well the more fortunate in regard to health, even the Sybarite, if any such there be amongst the readers of the PENN MONTHLA, remember the peculiarities of this wonderful climate and State of Minnesota.

MINNEAPOLIS, Nov., 1871.

W.

THE PHILADELPHIA SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION.

REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, READ AT THE ANNUAL MEETING, DECEMBER 12, 1871.

HIS Association has, during the past year, continued to

carry out the purpose for which it was organized, as set forth in its original plan-to guide the public to the best practical means of promoting the amendment of laws, the advancement of education, the prevention and repression of crime, the reformation of criminals, the furtherance of public morality, the adoption of sanitary regulations, and the diffusion of sound principles of economy, trade and finance.

There are now one hundred and sixty names of members on its list-about thirty more than at its last annual meeting. It has lost by death the assistance and valuable influence of Messrs. Stephen H. Colwell, Samuel V. Merrick, J. K. Collins and Geo. D. Parrish, all of whom took a lively interest in the labors of the Association. The valuable library of Mr. Colwell has been handed over to the University, and it is hoped that at no distant day his cherished purpose of founding there a chair of Social Science may be carried into execution.

The number of active members of the Association has been diminished by the removal from this city of the Hon. Walter H. Lowrie, Prof. N. S. Smith and Mr. T. Guilford Smith, but they still give evidences of their interest in the various measures under discussion by their occasional presence at its meetings, and by supplying papers for them. During the past year there were five public meetings held, at which papers were read and discussed as follows:

1st. January 19, '71. Mr. Lorin Blodgett, on Compulsory Education.

2d. February 16, '71. Mr. Eckley B. Coxe, on Arbitration as a Remedy for Strikes.

3d. March 16, '71. Mr. N. C. McMurtrie, on the Proposed Revised Statutes of Pennsylvania.

4th. April 20, '71. Mr. Thomas Cochran, on Local Taxation. 5th. May 5, '71. Dr. J. S. Parry, on Infant Mortality.

These papers were read at the Hall of the Mercantile Library, before respectable audiences, many of whom took part in the discussion of the questions submitted. The papers were afterward printed, together with a phonographic report of the debate, and largely distributed, so that the work of the Association reaches far beyond its own locality. The same system of public meetings of the several departments will be maintained, and the following papers will be read and discussed on the third Thursday of each month:

December 21. E. Spencer Miller, Esq., on Statute Law and Common Law, before the Department on Jurisprudence and Amendment of Law.

January 18. James S. Whitney, Esq., on Apprenticeship, before the Department of Mining and Manufactures.

February 15. Hon. F. Jordan, on the Proposed Amendments to the Constitution of Pennsylvania.

March 21. Dr. J. S. Parry, on The Uses and Abuses of Medical Charities, before the Department of Public Health.

April 18. Mr. E. A. Peet, on The Science of Life Insurance, before the Department of Economy, Trade and Finance.

Other papers are also expected from Messrs. Lorin Blodgett, Campbell Tucker and Guilford Smith. All students in Social Science are requested to bring to the public attention, through this Association, the results of their study of any of the numerous and important questions within the plan of its investigations. It is hoped, too, that persons not members of the Association, who have given attention to measures of public interest within the scope of Social Science, will make use of the opportunity thus offered by the stated public meetings of this Association, to submit their views to its members, and to unite their discussion and that of the public.

The accounts of the Treasurer show a total of:

Receipts......

Expenditures.....

Leaving a balance on hand of

$1,843 62

1,474 95

368 67

The larger part of the sums thus collected and disbursed, were contributions to the Printing Fund of the General Association, in return for which our members received the printed papers of the General Association; the papers read before our own Local Asso