RAINFALL AND COMMERCE AND POLITICS. 165 



On the other hand, the parties which are in power, when the in- 

 creased rainfall and subsequent prosperity reappear, claim and get the 

 credit for it, and are usually returned to power by large majorities. 

 In France, the present ministry has been in power for several years; 

 in England, the conservatives have been returned with immense 

 majorities; in Canada, the liberals were equally successful; and in our 

 own country, the republicans were returned on a 'tidal wave.' 



To designate as a superstition the belief in the capacity of the 

 various political parties in power to make prosperity may be extreme, 

 but certainly careful thinkers will join in the wish that such relations 

 to natural phenomena as are here outlined might be carefully studied 

 by trained investigators, using well-kno^vn scientific methods. Per- 

 haps, then a unity of belief as to the causes of commercial distress 

 might be obtained equaling that which has prevailed since Darwin's 

 day as to the causes of variety and changes of form in the animal 

 kingdom. 



Would that some wise benefactor would found an institu- 

 tion purely for research, where all such questions of man's relation to 

 the universe could be carefully investigated by trained investigators 

 using the well-tried and fruitful methods of science ! 



Such an institution should be perfectly free and independent of the 

 control of any other institution or party and especially should it be 

 free from Government control. No man should be appointed to it 

 because he believes in certain current theories, as, for example, free 

 trade, and would give free trade statistics while the free trade party 

 was in power, only to be dismissed and replaced by a man who would 

 give high tariff statistics while the high tariff party was in power. 

 His loyalty should be to the truth alone, and he should be allowed 

 perfect freedom of expression for his results and conclusions, however 

 much they might differ from accepted beliefs. 



Such an institution, with an adequate endowment, devoted without 

 let or hindrance to the search for truth in every field of human activity, 

 would be of inestimable value to the nation. 



Our universities, performing the threefold functions of training in 

 methods, diffusing knowledge and investigating the laws of nature, are 

 undoubtedly an immense power for progress in the nation. But they 

 have strangely neglected the atmosphere and its relations to 

 man. In only one university of our nation is there a professorship of 

 climatology, and that of so recent a date as to be almost of the present. 

 Is it any wonder that the influence of our atmosphere on health, com- 

 merce and politics is so little known? The work in meteorology in 

 America heretofore has been almost entirely outside of our univer- 

 sities; but surely this cannot last. Our universities should somehow 

 find means to give the study and teaching of meteorology their rightful 

 and independent places. 



