VALUE OF WEATHER OBSERVATIONS 129 



THE VALUE OF NON-INSTEUMENTAL WEATHER 



OBSERYATIOXS 



By rROFESSOR ROBERT DeC. WARD 



HARVARD UNIVERSITY 



MUCH emphasis has been laid — and lightl}^ — upon the necessity, 

 in climatological studies, of systematic observations, carefully 

 checked, punctually recorded and extending throughout many years, of 

 properly exposed standard meteorological instruments. Upon such ob- 

 servations the scientific study of the world's climatology must be based. 

 "Without them everything remains vague ; no real comparison of 

 climates is possible; no detailed investigations of climate in relation to 

 health, to crops, to industry, can be undertaken. Our conviction has 

 become fixed that unless we can keep such a series of standard records, 

 with a considerable and expensive instrumental equipment, it is not 

 worth while to attempt any meteorological observations whatever. This 

 is far from being the case. There is a very considerable series of ob- 

 servations-^non-instrumental, unsystematic, irregular. " liaphazard " 

 if you will — which any one with ordinary intelligence and with a real 

 interest in weather conditions may undertake. Such a diversion will 

 add greatly to the interest of our humdrum every-day life, and will 

 develop from day to day, in a surprising way, powers of observation 

 which we were unconscious of possessing. Obviously, when such non- 

 instrumental observations can be made at regular hours, at one place, 

 they lead to a more compact and complete result than when they are 

 made at odd times, in different places, as during a journey. 



During the past summer, while recovering from a recent illness and 

 therefore not wishing to burden myself with routine instrumental ob- 

 servations, I have found great satisfaction among the New Hampshire 

 hills in working out day after day the local meteorological conditions. 

 I have tried to banish from my mind altogether my previous knowledge 

 of the climate of the region as a whole, and of the meteorological phe- 

 nomena of mountain districts in particular. Thus, open-minded and 

 unprejudiced, as far as possible, I have gradually worked out the es- 

 sential elements of a local, non-instrumental climatology— an under- 

 taking which has given me great interest, and I frankly confess has 

 added not a little to my general store of climatological knowledge. 



During the excessive heat of the first part of July (1911) it was 

 comforting to note^ that the maximum temperatures up in the New 



^ A sling tliermometer \\"as used in this case. 



