528 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



during calms the atmosphere for that city contains an excess of car- 

 bonic acid gas and a consequent deficiency of oxygen. The devitalizing 

 effect of the former gas upon life processes and the importance of the 

 latter to them are facts too well recognized to need discussion here. 

 That they are demonstrated by the conditions stated earlier in this 

 paper I shall maintain until some more tenable hypothesis is brought 

 forward. 



Some interesting facts not already alluded to are suggested by this 

 study, and in conclusion I shall mention two of them very briefly. 



First, there would seem to be reason to infer that the influence of 

 cahns upon children is more marked than that upon adults. The basis 

 for this belief is found in the fact that the absentees from school were 

 increased three-fold during their prevalence, while no one of the classes 

 of adults was affected to anything like such an extent. 



Second, that women seem to be more sensitive to such influence 

 than men. Evidence of this are to be found in the study of arrests for 

 assault and battery where the sexes were tabulated separately. 



In explanation of my own conception of the whole problem of 

 weather influences, I would say, in closing, that we cannot suppose 

 peculiar meteorological conditions to be the immediate cause of many 

 of the abnormalities of conduct which vary with them. I have deter- 

 mined that suicide is much more frequent when the barometer is low 

 than when it is high, yet would not wish to assert that low barometrical 

 conditions ever drove a man to self destruction. The only thing sup- 

 posable is that during such atmospheric conditions, the general emo- 

 tional states are of such qualities that other things are more likely to 

 do so. 



This would be just as true for any of the other abnormalities of 

 conduct studied. We can on the strength of the whole series of studies 

 claim to have demonstrated that the metabolic processes of life to some 

 extent vary with the weather states, and that these variations in metab- 

 olism make themselves evident both through physiological and psy- 

 chological manifestations. More than this we do not at present claim. 



