Lynchburg Star

FROM THE REPORTER.

SUMMER DRESS

MR. FESSENDEN,

As it is our constant Duty to exert ourselves in the promotion of the Happiness of Mankind whatever may tend to so great Object, ought not to be hidden. Impressed with this Idea, the following Remarks on the different degrees of heat imbibed from the same rays, by Clothes of different colours, &c. &c. are presented.

Partly from Dr. Franklin's experiments and observations on Electricity.

In the first place let me mention an experiment you may easily make yourself. Walk but a quarter of an hour in your Garden when the Sun shines, with a part of your Dress white and a part black; then apply your hand to them alternately, and you will find a very great difference in their warmth. The Black will be quite hot to the touch, the white still cool.

2d. Put a white glove on one hand, and a black one on the other and hold them out in a warm Sun, or at an equal distance from a Fire, and you will readily discover the greatest degrees of heat in the black one.

Another, Try to fire paper with a burning glass. If the paper be white you will not easily burn it; but if you bring the focus to a black spot, or upon letters, written or printed, the paper will be immediately on fire under the letters.

Thus fullers and dyers find black Cloths, of an equal thickness with white ones, and hung out equally wet, dry in the sun much sooner than the white, being more readily heated by the Sun's rays. It is the same before the fire; the heat of which sooner penetrates black stockings than white ones, and is so apt sooner to burn a Man's shins. Also beer much sooner warms in a black Mug set before the fire, than a white one, or in a bright silver tankard.

My experiment (says Dr. Franklin) was this: I took a number of little square pieces of Broadcloth from a Taylor's pattern Card, of various colours. There were black, deep blue, lighter blue, green, purple, red, yellow white, and other colours or shades of colours. I laid them all out upon the snow one bright sunny morning. In a few hours the black being warmed most by the Sun was sunk so low as to be below the stroke of the Sun's Rays: the dark blue almost as low, the lighter blue not quite so much as the dark, the other colours as they were lighter and the quite white remained on the surface of the Snow, not having covered it at all.

It will here naturally be enquired, Why are black cloths or colours warmer, or for what reasons do they imbibe greater degrees of heat than white ones? The answer is, That Black, instead of reflecting back the Rays of light or heat adheres to and absorbs them; while white instead of absorbing, reflects back those Rays.

From hence may we not learn, that black cloths are, by no means, suitable to wear in a hot sunny climate, or Season: because in such Cloths the Body is more heated by the sun when we walk abroad, and are at the same time heated by the exercise, and with double heat has a tendency to bring on putrid, dangerous fevers, and other difficulties. That the Ladies and Gentlemen's summer Dresses Should be of the clearest white: and their summer Hats should in a particular manner be white, as repelling that heat which gives head-aches to many and probably to some the fatal stroke that the French call the Coup de Soleil:

That the Ladies' Summer Hats (or Bonnets) however Should be lined with black, as not reverberating on their faces these Rays which are reflected upwards from the Earth or Water:

that the putting a white cap of paper, or linen, within the crown, of a black Hat, as some do, will not keep out the heat, though it would if placed without--That Seamen and Soldiers ought by all means to attend to it: especially those who are bound to and obliged to labour and march in hot countries; they ought ever to be prepared with uniforms of white. That the coolness and consequently the agreeableness of white dress (were there no other reasons to urge) are a sufficient stimulus for the wearing of them in hot Sunny climate or Seasons

-That Fruit walls being blackened may receive so much Heat from the Sun in the day-time, as to continue warm, in some degree, through the night, and thereby preserve the fruit from frosts, or forward its growth --with sundry other particulars of less, or greater consequence, that will occur from time to time to attentive minds

Would not strict attention to and practice of the foregoing, contribute to the Health and Happiness of the inhabitants of our country in general? Nothing is more precious, important, or dear than our Health; and yet nothing much more trifled with. When our Health is once gone what are we, miserable indeed; doomed to drag out a pitiful existence in sorrow and perhaps desperation. How inseparably connected are Health and Happiness! How many objects do we with pain behold wretched only from a want of Health, and all owing to their own imprudent conduct!

Impressed with these Ideas, why will we not take warning? and use every effort in our power if possible to preserve our Health?