1895 8th Grade Final Exam, more answers...

[riverbrady]

Geography (Time, one hour)

1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?

a.) Climate is the prevailing or average weather of a place as determined by the temperature and meteorological changes over a period of years.

b.) The climate of a place depends largely on the latitude of the place, the features of the surrounding terrain, the nearness to an ocean, or a mountain range which channels and directs wind patterns. We have seasons in our weather pattern, and changes in the length of the warming day thoughout the year, due to the ecliptic of the earth's annual path around the sun. It is the daily warming and cooling of the land and oceans that is the prime generator of the world weather system.

2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?

The extremes of climate in Kansas are predicated on the fact that the state is in the middle of the continent and the great plains, not near any mountains or oceans, exposed in winter to cold winds from the north in Canada, and in summer to heavy moisture laden winds from the Gulf of Mexico. It is the meeting of these two wind sources in fall that creates the huge wind vortices and deep moist convections which become the tornadoes that are a yearly danger in Kansas.

3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?

a.) Rivers have many uses: first, to drain off excess water from the land surface; secondly, to replenish the aquifers under their stream bead and underlying all of Kansas and from which we get most all of our water for irrigation and human consumption; thirdly, the river is a highway of commerce, with the steamboats reaching far into the west; and fourthly, as an area of recreation, fishing, boating and swimming.

b.) Oceans are the reservoir for the majority of heat received from the sun, for the runoff of all rivers and aquifers, the source of most all rain from the evaporation of the surface waters, and the engine which drives our weather patterns, and the moderator of coastal climates. The ocean fisheries are a major source of protein to many of the world's peoples. International commerce would not be possible except for the navigation of the oceans.

4. Describe the mountains of N.A.

The mountains of North America lay in four great chains, oriented generally north to south. They are in order from East to West, the Appalachian/Adirondack chain inland from the Atlantic coast which includes the Blue Ridge and Smokey mountains. They are an old range, worn down thru the aeons. Across the Great Planes from them, midway to the Rocky Mountains, are the Black Hills of the Dakotas, somewhatisolated from the Rockies. The Rocky Mountains, consisting of many parallel ranges, are located at the western boundary of Montana, running southeasterly from the Yukon to Arizona and New Mexico. They form the Continental Divide, which determines the course of the rivers emptying into the Missizzippi drainage, and those emptying into the Pacific Ocean. The high plateaus and basins of Utah and Nevada by and large intervene between the Rockies and the next great chain, the Sierra mountain range in California and the extension northward in Oregon and Washington State, where they are called the Cascade Range. Beyond the Sierra/Cascades across the interior valleys of California and Oregon are the Coastal Range, laying quite close to the Pacific Ocean. Westerly from the Cascades in Washington on the Pacific Coast is the Olympic range north of the Columbia River forming the Olympic peninsula. The Olympics have one of the important rainforests of the world and are a valuable source for timber, as are all the mountain ranges of North America. Most mining in North America is in the mountains, the Eastern mountains are a source of coal and iron, the Rockies and Sierras are a source of gold, silver and other metals.

5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.

a.) Monrovia City is the capital of the nation of Monrovia, onthe Atlantic Ocean, at the mouth of the Saint Paul River. Situated on Bushrod Island and Cape Mesurado, it is the nation's chief port and commercial center. It has extensive docks. Iron ore and rubber are major exports; substantial quantities of imports are transshipped to neighboring countries. The University of Liberia (founded in 1862) is here.Monrovia was founded in 1822 by the American Colonization Society as a refuge for freed slaves from North America; it was named in honor of United States president James Monroe. Large numbers of former slaves have been resettled here.

b.) Odessa is capital of Odessa region of the Ukraine, a port on Odessa Bay of the Black Sea. The third largest Ukrainian city after Kiev and Kharkiv, Odessa is an important rail junction and transportation hub. Grain, sugar, coal, cement, metals, jute, and timber are the chief items of trade at the port of Odessa, which is the leading Ukrainian Black Sea port. Odessa is also a naval base and the home port of a fishing and an antarctic whaling fleet. The city's industries include shipbuilding, machine building, metalworking, food processing, and the manufacture of chemicals, machine tools, clothing, and products made of wood, jute, and silk. Health resorts are located nearby. Odessa has a university (est. 1865), an opera and ballet theater (1809), a historical museum (1825), a municipal library (1830), an astronomical observatory (1871), an opera house (1883-87). Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, and Greeks predominate in Odessa's cosmopolitan population. The city is said to occupy the site of an ancient Miletian Greek colony (Odessos, Ordyssos, or Ordas) that disappeared between the 3d and 4th century. In the 14th century the site, then under Lithuanian control, became a Crimean Tatar fortress and trade center called Khadzhi-Bei. In 1764 it passed to the Turks, who built a fortress (Yenu-Duniya) to protect the harbor. It was captured by the Russians in 1789.

c.) Sited on high plains at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, Denver, the capital of Colorado, has a sunny, cool, dry climate, averaging 13 inches of precipitation a year. The sun shines 300 days a year. Denver was established by a party of prospectors on November 22, 1858, after a gold discovery at the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River. Town founders named the dusty crossroads for James W. Denver, Governor of Kansas Territory, of which eastern Colorado was then a part. Other gold discoveries sparked a mass migration of some 100,000 in 1859-60, leading the federal government to establish Colorado Territory in 1861.

Before the great Colorado gold rush, the Rocky Mountains offered little toattract settlers, except "hairy bank notes," the beaver pelts prized by furtrappers, traders and fashionably hatted gentlemen in Eastern Americaand Europe. The gold rush changed that, as the rudely dispossessedCheyenne and Arapaho soon discovered.

The Mile High City's aggressive leadership, spearheaded by William N. Byers, founding editor of the Rocky Mountain News, and Territorial Governor John Evans, insisted that the Indians must go. After dispossessing the natives, Denverites built a network of railroads that made their town the banking, minting, supply and processing center not only for Colorado, but for neighboring states. Between 1870 when the first railroads arrived and 1890, Denver grew from 4,759 to 106,713. In a single generation, it became the second most populous city in the West, second only to San Francisco.Although founded as the main supply town for Rocky Mountain mining camps, Denver also emerged as a hub for high plains agriculture. Denver's breweries, bakeries, meat packing and other food-processing plants made it the regional agricultural center, as well as a manufacturing hub for farm and ranch equipment, barbed wire, windmills, seed, feed and harnesses.

d.) Manitoba, a province in south central Canada and the easternmost of Canada's three Prairie provinces, was part of the Hudson's Bay Company's holdings in North America known as Prince Rupert's Land, founded in 1670. Chief interests for its first two centuries were the fur trade, the province's major economic activity, exploration and settlement. After 1870, Prince Rupert's Land was incorporated into the Dominion of Canada. As large numbers of settlers came, agriculture and wheat growing became dominant. Manitoba province has been known as the Keystone Province ever since Canada's Governor-General Lord Dufferin described the province in 1877 as "the keystone of that mighty arch of sister provinces which spans the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific." Manitoba lies in the geographic center of Canada.Manitoba and is a transportation and processing center for the agrarian west.

e.) Mount Hecla is one of the most active volcanic constructs in Iceland is also the site of descent into the interior in Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth," which we have in the bookcase at the back of the room. One of my favorite poems, by Richard Hovey, that I just recently read is "The Quest of Merlin", which mentions Mount Hecla in the prelude: "Interior of a cavern in the bowels of the earth, beneath Mount Hecla. Huge rock-fragments, amid which twists tortuously a great root of the tree Yggdrasil. A flickering flame, by the light of which are seen the NORNS, colossal but shadowy shapes, about a gigantic but indistinct Loom. Dull, heavy sounds, out of which arises a strange music, which resolves itself continually into imperfect harmonies, which leave the heart in unrest. A sense of striving and struggle beats through the music."

f.) The Yukon is Alaska's largest river. It originates in Canada in the Yukon Basin of the Northwest Territory and flows 2,000 miles west into the Bering Sea. From the third week in May when the ice breaks up until mid-October when it re-freezes, it is a summer waterway. After it freezes, it is a winter highway. About 200 riverboats and steamers carry freight during the summer months. I have heard that gold has been discovered along the Yukon.

g.) St. Helena is an island in the Atlantic about mid-way between South America and Africa. It was uninhabited when first discovered by the Portuguese in 1502. The island was garrisoned by the British during the 17th century. It became famous as the place of Napoleon Bonaparte's exile, from 1815 until his death in 1821. It is located at 15º 56' South Latitude, 5º 42' West Longitude.

h.) The Juan Fernandez Islands, (33º 50'S, 80º 00'W) have developed in isolation, about 400 miles west of Santiago in Chile, on two small islands of volcanic origin, Robinson Crusoe Island and Santa Clara Island. The most ancient of these islands, Robinson Crusoe Island, thought to be some 4 million years old, harbours plant communities including survivors of many ancient plant groups that were once much more widespread in the southern hemisphere. The first human occupation of the islands was in 1574 when the Spanish explorer Juan Fernandez discovered the islands.

i.) Aspinwall is a town in Georgia. It is in the area where the Seminole/Muskogee Indians lived.

j.) The Orinoco River in Venezuela is one of South America's longest rivers, extending 1,590 mi. Its source is in the Guiana Highlands, on the slopes of the Sierra Parima, in extreme southeastern Venezuela, on the border of Brazil. It flows northwest to a point near La Esmeralda, where it divides. One arm, the Casiquiare River, goes south and after a course of 180 mi enters theRio Negro, a tributary of the Amazon River. The main branch continues northwest to the town of San Fernando de Atabapo and, flowing generally north, forms the border between Venezuela and Colombia. After passing over the Maipures and Atures Rapids it meets the Apure River. The Orinoco then turns northeast and traverses theplains of Venezuela before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. The Orinoco averages 4 mi in width. The delta of the river begins 120 mi from the Atlantic. The Orinoco is navigable for oceangoing ships for 260 miles, from the mouth to the city of Ciudad Bolivar. It is navigable for smaller craft for a distance of 1,000 miles. The Orinoco was sighted in 1498 by Christopher Columbus and was first explored by Europeans (1530-1531) to the confluence with the Meta River. The German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt explored the upper reaches in 1799.

6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.

The principal trade centers of the United States are New York, New York, located at the mouth of the Hudson River; Boston, Massachusetts, located in Boston Harbor; Chicago, Illinois, located at the south end of Lake Michigan; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, located on the reaches of Delaware Bay; Baltimore, Maryland, located on the reaches of Chesapeake Bay; New Orleans, Louisiana, located between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River inland from the Gulf of Mexico; St. Louis, Missouri, located at the confluence of the Missouri River and the Misssissippi; Kansas City, Missouri, located on the Missouri River at the Kansas River confluencee, also being a great rail hub; Denver, Colorado, situated at the eastern slope of the Rockies as noted above; Los Angeles, California, in southern California at Los Angeles Harbor; San Francisco in the north of California at San Francisco Bay; and Seattle, Washington, located on east side of Puget Sound in Washington State, now becoming an important trade center in addition to its primary lumber industry and naval shipyards.

7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.

France with its capital at Paris, and Switzerland with its capital at Bern are the only republics in Europe. There are no other republics in Europe as we know a republic to be, all the other nations are constitutional monarchies, or principalities. The major monarchies are Great Britain, London; Germany, Berlin; Russia, St. Petersburg; Ukraine, Kiev; Austria/Hungary, Vienna; Italy, Rome; Spain, Seville; Portugal, Lisbon; Belgium, Brussels; Holland, Amsterdam; Denmark, Copenhagen; Norway, Oslo; and Sweden, Stockholm.

8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?

The Atlantic coast is colder because the northward flow of the Japanese current prevents the majority of cold artic air from sinking south along the Pacific coast, until east of the Rocky Mountains, sweeping thence across the northern plains, sinking to lower latitudes bringing freezing weather south as far as Florida.

9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.

As the sun heats the ocean waters the evaporate rises into the prevailing wind currents which flow generally from west to east. On reaching mountainous areas the wind currents rise and are cooled, condensing the evaporate into rain, hail, or snow, which then returns to earth, the excess which is not absorbed becoming run-off and forming rivulets, streams, then rivers, returning to the sea to repeat the process over again. Eventually, even the water which is absorbed in the earth also returns to the see, as in our Colorado/Kansan aquifer, although that may take many thousands of years.

10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of the earth.

Today we know that the earth is involved in five motions, Rotation, Revolution, Precession, Motion around the galactic nucleus, and Motion of the galaxy. The rotation or spinning motion of a planet about an axis is the most basic of the five planetary motions. The earth rotates about its axis once every 24 hours, producing changes in what portion of the Earth is illuminated by the Sun, creating our day and night. The tern "revolution" refers to the orbital motion of the earth as it travels an elliptical path around the sun. The earth's period of revolution, i.e., the time to complete a revolution, is 365.25 days. As the earth's axis is inclined 23.4 degrees relative to the orbital plane, this produces our seasons. The Earth's axis is "wobbling", meaning that the axis changes its orientation with respect to celestial objects. This wobbling motion is referred to as "precession". Precession is similar to the wobbling motion of a top as it spins. The earth's period of precession is about 26,000 years. As we look out into the nighttime sky we cannot help but ponder the vastness of space and the innumerable stars that fill it. Our Sun is one of 100 billion stars that are gravitationally bound and make up the Milky Way Galaxy. Because we are a part of the galaxy, it is difficult for us to determine its shape and size and our location in it. However, based on the best available information, the Milk Way is a spiral galaxy similar in structure to its nearest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy. Our Sun is located in the flattened disk approximately two-thirds of the way from the central bulge in a spiral arm. Just as the planets orbit the Sun, the Sun orbits around the galactic nucleus. The velocity of the Sun and the planets around the galactic nucleus is consistent with the laws of Kepler and Newton. Astronomers calculate that this period of revolution around the galaxy center is 240,000,000 years. The suspected motion of the galaxy through space has not yet been determined.


Health (Time, 45 minutes)

1. Where are the saliva, gastric juice, and bile secreted? What is the use of each in digestion?

a.) Saliva is secreted in the mouth by the salivary glands. Saliva is a somewhat alkaline fluid that moistens the mouth, softens food, and aids in digestion. The submaxillary glands are located around the mouth under the lower jaw, the sublingual glands are located beneath the tongue, and the parotid glands are found in front of each ear. The buccal glands, in the cheeks near the front of the mouth, also secrete saliva.

b.) Gastric juice is a thin, strongly acidic (pH varying from 1 to 3), almost colorless liquid secreted by the glands in the lining of the stomach. Its essential constituents are the digestive enzymes pepsin and rennin, hydrochloric acid, and mucus. Pepsin converts proteins into simpler, more easily absorbed substances; it is aided in this by hydrochloric acid, which provides the acid environment in which pepsin is most effective. Rennin aids the digestion of milk proteins. Mucus secreted by the gastric glands helps protect the stomach lining from the action of gastric juice. Gastric secretion is stimulated by a number of hormones and chemical substances, by the presence of food in the stomach, and by a number of psychological factors, such as the smell of a favorite food.

c.) Bile is a yellowish-brown or green fluid secreted by the liver in the bile duct. This liquid carries away waste from the processes of the liver and helps in the digestive process.

2. How does nutrition reach the circulation?

Nutrients reach the circulation by absorbtion thru the intestinal walls. The main purpose of the intestines it to take the partially digested food from the stomach and convert it into energy. The small intestine is about 20 feet long. The small intestine is divided into three sections, the duodenum, the jejunum and ileum. The small intestinal glands secrete intestinal juices that helps with the digestive process. The liver dumps bile into the small intestine through the bile duct. The pancreas secretes pancreatic enzymes into the small intestine. Bile and the pancreatic enzymes break down fats, proteins and carbohydrates. This partially digested mixture empties into the large intestine through an opening the ileocecal valve. The large intestine is about 4 1/2 feet long. The large intestine is divided into six parts. They are the cecum, ascending colon, transverse colon, descending colon, sigmoid colon, and the rectum. The large intestines main purpose is to further digest the food, releasing nutrients into the blood and to absorb fluids.

3. What is the function of the liver? Of the kidneys?

a.) The liver is the center for the storage of vitamins and nutrients which were disolved and digested in the intestines. The nutrients are carried to the liver by two large veins. Blood passes through the liver at a rate of about 1 1/2 quarts per minute. At any given time the liver cintains about 10% of all the blood in your body. The liver is divided into two main parts called lobes. The liver is protected by the bottom part of the ribs on the right side of your chest and the liver weighs between 3 and 4 pounds.The liver also works to make bile. Bile is used to break down fats in the small intestine. The bile is stored in the gall bladder until it is needed to help digest the food you eat. If you eat a real fatty foodyour body will need more bile to help digest those fats than it would need in comparrison to a salad or some fruit.

b.) The kidneys are bean-shaped organs, each about the size of a fist. They are located near the middle of the lower back, just below the rib cage. The kidneys are sophisticated trash collectors. Every day, the kidneys process about 200 quarts of blood to sift out about 2 quarts of waste products and extra water. The waste and extra water become urine, which flows to the bladder through tubes called ureters. The bladder stores urine until you go to the bathroom. The wastes in the blood come from the normal breakdown of active muscle and from the food we eat. Our body uses the food for energy and self-repair. After our body has taken what it needs from the food, waste is sent to the blood. If our kidneys did not remove these wastes, the wastes would build up in the blood and damage our body.

4. How would you stop the flow of blood from an artery in the case of laceration?

If the laceration is in an arm or a leg, I would apply a tourniquet around the limb between the laceration and the heart, tightening it until the flow was stopped, loosening the tourniquet every 10 minutes to let blood pass to nourish the cells beyond the tourniquet, at the same time applying pressure over the laceration with a cloth pad to staunch the loss of blood. A laceration of the arteries of the neck obviously cannot be tourniqueted, so the only thing that can be done is to apply pressure with a cloth pad. Loss of blood and oxygen to the brain can quickly lead to death.

5. Give some general directions that you think would be beneficial to preserve the human body in a state of health.

a.) Regular meals of a variety of foods, both animal and vegetable. I like a lot of vegetables and fruits.

b.) Regular Exercise, which I get a lot of on the farm every day. Regular exercise keeps the muscles, heart and lungs in good tone.

c.) Regular Rest of from 7 to 8 hours sleep a night

d.) Regular personal hygiene, brushing teeth, washing skin and hair with good soap, etc. everyday. We usually get one good bath a week at home, heating well water on the stove, but in summer we swim in the river every day, and wash there.

e.) Regular times of ease, prayer and meditation each day also help me to think about and solve the problems of the day. God sometimes gives me answers to problems that I can't solve by myself, and teaches me to ask for help with things I don't know, from my parents and my teacher, and others that do know. It is great fun learning things that I don't know!