382 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



an indictment of the newspaper treatment of the weather can be made, 

 since; although in this matter the newspaper reflects public ignorance 

 and adds to it, in other lines of endeavor the average newspaper is quick 

 to reflect knowledge and expertness. But with the weather it is other- 

 wise. Instead of informing, most newspapers merely confirm popular 

 error. Although for a generation the main facts of weather drift have 

 been settled beyond dispute, they know nothing of it; they are still 

 in the swaddling clothes of belief, and still accept the concepts of their 

 grandfathers, who swore by the 'Shepherd of Banbury's Kules,' and 

 knew a wet moon when they saw it. As under normal circumstances 

 this profound ignorance would give way slowly to the new science, it 

 is regrettable that on the part of journalism there should be so gross 

 a dereliction, and that at this late day, instead of being the harbinger 

 of the new fact, it should still be the handmaiden of the old obscurant- 

 ism. If, believing the problem of meteorology to be too difficult to 

 understand, the newspaper would let the weather alone, things might 

 improve. But, unfortunately, the weather will not let the newspaper 

 alone, and so, through government forecast and actual incident and 

 accident, the newspaper must keep pegging away at it, editorially and 

 'reportorially/ until the present anomalous state of things is developed, 

 for which there is no excuse in the nature of science or in the intelli- 

 gence of those who 'get out' the modern newspaper. A daily journal 

 is not a technical publication. One does not expect to see worked out 

 in it problems in the differential calculus. One might forgive a casual 

 error in the statement of the formula? for hydrocarbon compounds, 

 since organic chemistry is not served up as a daily dish, but the per- 

 sistent indifference to meteorological explanations, within the capacity 

 of a boy of fifteen, is inexcusable, and, unfortunately, as the comments 

 on the Galveston horror show, there is no sign of a change for the 

 better. A few, a very few, newspapers — exceptions but prove the rule 

 — reflect expertness and evince common-sense accuracy, still at the same 

 time losing nothing in the way of presenting the subject in an interest- 

 ing and attractive manner; but, for the most part, the average news- 

 paper fails in its duty to the public, so far as the weather is concerned, 

 in the four following particulars: 



1. By reason of a misapprehension and misrepresentation of the 

 simplest fimdamental facts of atmospheric circulation and weather 

 movement, effects being treated as causes, etc. 



2. By reason of a constant confusion of terminology and a generally 

 slipshod use of weather terms and facts. 



3. By reason of a persistent refusal to recognize much, if any, 

 difference between the scientist and the charlatan, between the expert 

 and the quack; and, in fact, by a disposition — marked in some quarters 

 — to give undue prominence to bogus weather prophets and wonder- 



