--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Harris, Franklin S. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 32 number: 5 published: 1929-03 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Franklin S. Harris, “Lessons from Common Things,” *Improvement Era* 32, no. 5 (March 1929): 390–391." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3205unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera3205unse start_page: 390 end_page: 391 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1929-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3205unse publication_year: 1929 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1929, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Lessons from Common Things Lessons from Common Things By Dr. Franklin S. Harris, President of the Brigham Young University 3. WIND WHEN I was a boy living in a section where wind was very disagreeable during certain periods of the year, I made up my mind that if I ever had the chance to make a world to order I would eliminate all wind from it. If I had then known as much as I know now, such an idea could not long remain in my mind. Since my childhood days I have learned a lot of lessons about the world and how each part of it functions to the best ad- vantage of man. I am sure that if my various childish fancies had all been catered to the entire universe would have been upset, and much suffering brought upon the world. More and more I am willing to take the world just as I find it, knowing that when I strive for greater knowledge of the parts that seem to function poor- ly I shall find that even they are fully justified. Take for instance, this disagreeable item of the wind. What relation has it to our daily lives? It is so very common that we seldom pay very much attention to it, but if we strive to know all about it, at once it becomes of great interest. The wind is nothing more nor less than an attempt to even up air pressure brought about by different densities of the air. When air is heated it expands and therefore becomes lighter per unit of volume. A cubic foot of air that is cold weighs a fraction of an ounce more than a cubic foot of warm air. When a heavy weight is put on one side of a balance and a lighter one on the other side, the heavy one goes down and the lighter one comes up. This is the whole story behind wind. When for any reason the air over a large area becomes heated it becomes light, and the air in the surrounding area which remains cooler is heavier; the cooler air rushes in and forces the lighter to rise. The rush of cold air is what we recognize as the wind, and the faster it rushes, the harder the wind. The warm air which rises is of great importance to us. Air which is warm has the power to absorb much larger quantities of water vapor than cool air. Every housewife knows that when- ever she wants to dissolve things like sugar quickly, she heats the water. This does not apply to all substances; for example, common salt does not dissolve much faster in hot water than it does in cold water, but most substances do, and most of them can be dissolved in larger quantities in hot water than in cold. Somewhat the same principle applies to gases like air. The air absorbs or dissolves very much more water vapor if it is warm or hot than if it is cold. Mar., 1929 LESSONS FROM COMMON THINGS 391 Air which has been warmed and holds a considerable amount of water vapor is continually being forced upward by cold air from surrounding localities. This moisture-laden warm air rises until it comes to a cooler current which absorbs part of its heat. After this loss of heat the air finds itself with more water vapor in solution than it can hold, and this causes cloudiness, or if the drop in tempera- ture is rapid, rain. All of our rain comes about through just such a process. Of course, everyone realizes that it would not be pos- sible to live long on the earth if there were not rain. The rivers would soon go dry and all the water would gather in the ocean as salt water. We need a constant supply of rain to renew the streams and to give fresh water to plants and man. If my childish fancies had been realized there would be no wind and, therefore, no sudden thrusting of moisture laden air upwards to furnish water for rain. An exchange of air from place to place is essential to an adequate supply of rain, because stagnant air soon becomes saturated with moisture and no more water will evaporate. The winds bring in fresh air to absorb the moisture so that water in great quantities is taken into the air to furnish the necessary rain water. Another very important quality of wind is that it has a great tempering influence on climate. Places which are cold and would remain cold are tempered in their climate because of the movement of warmer air. In the northwest part of this country and in Canada during the severe winter, the extreme temperature is frequently broken by what is called a "chinook," a wind which blows in from the west coast. This air having been warmed by the temperate ocean current moves inland and sometimes breaks a very severe winter. There is a constant interchange of air from land to sea whereby the land is made warmer during the winter and cooler during the summer. We all know how important it is to reduce the extremes of tempera- ture both in summer and winter, and the wind is one of the most important forces in bringing this about. Wind is also valuable in clearing the atmosphere. If there were no change in the air and it always remained in exactly the same position, it would become very foul around cities or districts with numerous industrial establishments, and soon become almost un- bearable. It is a wise provision of nature that these injurious by- products of man, which rise into the air, can be swept away regularly by the cleansing action of wind. In view of these things, as well as other things which I now know about wind, I have long since allowed my childish fancy to be replaced by the acknowledgment that the common things by which we are surrounded are very wisely planned. Did all of these wise provisions come about by chance? Can you believe it was brought about by a childish, amateur planner?