OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS COLUMN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2674, 14 June 1905, Page 80

OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS COLUMN.

FOR BOYS AND GIRLS.

[Conducted by Maglsteb, to whom all communications mvust be addressed.}

IN THE GRIP OF WINTER. This year, in Dunedin at anyrate, the date winter has set in can easily be remembered—the Ist of June. Rain, hail, sleet, and snow wore preceded by a driving Scotch mist, or fine rain, from the opposite point of the compass. Have you noticed the quarters the prevailing winds come from, where they seldom come from, and where they never come from? What are the characteristics of eaoh wind? Do all the winds bring rain? Whidh do, and which do not? What is the character of the rain? Do all parts of Otago get rains with the same winds? What parts of Otago get least rain, and which most? Why? What is the lowest temperature registered in Otago this month, up to the time this appeai-s? Where was it registered? These and scores of other questions we can answer very easily if we help one another in this column. Last week I piomised a tabulated form all could work to. Perhaps the following will do to make a start with. It is supplied by one of the schools which intends making use of this column. The teacher supplying it suggests t3:at an exercise book be opened in the middle, and that the table given occupy one page of the folio, and that the line extended on the other folio be used for brief remarks. Only school days are taken, though it would be mucih better if observations could be taken on Saturdays ani Sundays also, but if these are taken the ordinary ruled exercise will not have enough lines. In the table, under the heading "Sun," R stands for rises, S for sets, the plus for the minutes the day has lengthened by, and the minus for the minutes it has shortened by. In the school furnishing the diagram observations are being taken on two thermometers — one of the sunny side, and one on the shady side, — to show the difference of the sunny and shady aspects. Then, from the school observations, it was inferred that the hill slopes and cuttings in the vicinity would give similar results, and mountain ranges also. An exercise was also given somewhat to this effect: — Da - aw a section to scale a dhain wide and two chains deep, running due north and south; put it into the plan of a six-roomed house of given dimensions, and plaoe it so that every room gets the sun some time on a winter's day. There are probably hundreds of houses in Dunedin and suburbs in ■which, during- winter, there are ro-onis that do not g&t the sun. Sometimes the section is on a southerly sk>p.e, and it would be difficult perhaps to get the sun into every room ,* but there are hundreds of sunless rooms that, with a little contriving, could have had a sunny aspect. I shall be glad to get any suggestions and any results of observations not later than Monday night of eaoh week ; any arriving up to that time I shall try to get into the following- Thursday's column. I should have said that, often enough a line will not suffieo for observation outside the table given. When this ie the ea=e, notes could be put in the beginning of tho book and numbered to correspond with thei note number opposite the day tho note refers to. I shall be glad to get diagrams of good rain gauges; I have one by me>, but it is not a very good one. I was as-ked tho ooet of maximum and minimum thcrajomelor«. They run from 4s to 6s or 7». Aneroids and* baiometers can be got from about 5s up to as many j pounds sr mojs, * 4

Why the Snow is White.

Why is the enow white? is frequently asked. Because black snow would bedangerous; so would red or yellow. These* are " warming-up colours," and they change the sun's rays to heat. Such snow would soon medt again and prove a very poor protection. But white snow throws back the sunlight in just the form in which it reoeives it, and thus the snow can be long upon the ground. Throw dirt on the snow, and its dark colour quickly m&kes it ea* its way in whenever the sun shines on it. After a snowstorm, one© let the horses* feet mingle the dirt of i>h© road with the 6now, and sleighing will soon be over. Nature secures another advantage by [ changing the water into snow. All through the winter, while the plant world hae no© sufficient sunlight and warmth to grow, she collects the water, not now needed by the plants, on thei high regions, and holds it ba,ck; not jn dams and lakes that migihfc break and flood the valleys, and which iqt any event could only water the low lands ; but on every height she gathers a store o£ water that will not flow away and neecta no damming, but which is ready, when the first warm, sunshiny days of spring come, to allow its life-giving streams to find their way gently down the hilb to the valleys below, and to ooze slowly through the? ground to the plants that are all preparing at tiiat time for their grand onward rush into beauty and bloom. SEASONABLE CLIPPINGS. Last year I gave you several appropriate eoctracts on " Snow," and as winter has begU2i in earnest I give you three more — all good, — and follow these by another on " Winter," and one on " The Stocking Bag," which one somehow associates with the long wintea 1 evenings. The Snowflake. (Selected.) Here; is a sjiowflake. dainty and white Wandering from the sky ; . * It floats like a feather airy and light, Down from the clouds on high. Open the window and let it come in; Stay, pretty wanderer, stay. A beautiful raindrop once it has been. Soon it will melt away. Little Snowflakes. (Ida Giover Seabury.) Little snowflakes through the air Whirling, whirling down; ' Here and there and everywhere, * 'J.'er the eaitb so browa.

Coming down so white and still, We cannot hear you speak; Tell us, little snowflakes all— What is it that you seek? Swiftly, lightly flying Through the air so fast, Tell lis why you come to town When, the autumn's past? " Don't you know, wee girls and boys ? A soft, warm quilt we make — Flitting down together, so — Gently— flake by flake. "A downy comforter to keep, All Strug and safe and warm, The little seed-flowers, fast asleep, From every winter's stoim.' 1

Snow. (Eliza Cook.) A cheer for the snow — the drifting snow; Smoother and purer than Beauty's brow; The creature of thought scarce likes to tread On the delicate carpet so richly spread. With feathery wreaths the forest is bound, 'And the hills are with glittering diadems orowned. 'Tis the fairest scene we can have below: Sing welcome, then, to the drifting anowl

"Winter. (James Sussell Lowell.)

J)own swept the chill wind from the mountain pfiak, r • From the snow five thousand summers old; On open wold and hilltop bleak It' had gathered all the cold. And it hurled it like sleet on the wanderer's

cheek; It carried a shiver everywhere. From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare; The little brook heard it and built a roof '.Neath which he could house him, winter-

proof j All night by tlie white stars' frosty gleams Ec groined his arches and matched his beams ; Slender and clear were his crystal spais As the lashes of light that trim the stars: He sculptured every summer delight In his hwUls and chambers out pi sight ; Sometimes his tinkling waters 'slipped Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, 3jong,_ sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees Bending to counterfeit a breeze; Sometimes it was simply smooth, and clear For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops And hung them thic^y with diamond drops That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, And made a star of every one.

"Whes Mothes Takes the Stocking-bag. (Harriet Crocker Leroy.) 'When mother takes the stocking-bag we children gather round, For she's the jolliest mother anybody ever found. She -sits and rocks and darns the socks and tells us tales that day; I think you'd like to be there on stockingdarning day! *'2fow, once upon a time "—that's how she starts the story going — And Bob threads darning-needles and Jen takes up some sefwing, And Ted plays with the scissors, but I don't do a thing But look and look at mother and sit a-listen-ing. Most times they're 'bout the time when she was just a little girl, With pinafores and sunbonnet and many a liftle curl; A regular, tomboy, mother says, a-tearing round the farm, And climbing trees and jumping off the biobeam in tlie barn. And sometimes they're 'bout Indians away off there out West, And Bob and Ted and me— l guess we like that kind the best. And sometimes they're 'bout kings and queens who lived so long ago , Jen says if s history dressed up, and I believe that's so. We children wear our stockings out at a tremendous pace, So mother says, that smile of hers all shining in her face. But we are glad when the stocking-bag is full as it can be, For good times go with darning, don't you see?

BAT. S SUN. — + - I 9 a.m. 12 a.m. 3 p.m. THERMOMKTEIt, M»x. i.. J TJ N E. ... • Mm. Dif. < ■ 'k 9 «.tn. 12 a.m. nAnoMKi'rin, 3 p.m. 9 a.m. 12 am.. WINDS. 3 p.m. RAIN- 1 FALL