sweetening our coffee—that mysterious

    beverage, the secret of whose manufacture has never been revealed.

    From the cotton plant comes the woolen under-garment and the soldier’s blanket.

    From the lowly cabbage springs the Havana Perfecto, with its gold and crimson band, and from the simple turnip is distilled the golden champagne, without which so many lives will now be empty.

    Even the humble straw has its uses—to indicate the trend of the air current and for the stuffing of the life-preserver.

    What then is the use of the Weather?

    Supposing you have made a globe and put some people upon it to live. What would you do to make them feel at home?

    You would give them something to talk about.

    Just so—the Weather was designed to furnish a universal topic of conversation for Man.

    Without the Weather, 999,999 out of 1,000,000 conversations would die in their infancy.

    In the first geography book we learn from Moses how and of what the Weather was made.

    Since then, nothing has been so much talked

    about as the Weather, and in nothing has so little advance been made.

     Is it notoriety that makes the Weather-Vane?

     Where does the Winter-Resort in Summer? And why?

     How many litres of champagne can be extracted from the cube-root of one turnip?

     What did the Weather do to get herself so talked about?

     LAND AND WATER

    The terrestrial Globe is pleasingly tinted in blue, pink, yellow and green.

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