CHANGES OF CLIMATE 461 



for one of the earlv-settled sections of the United States, beginning 

 with the date of the first white settlements and extending down to the 

 present day, we should have the following situation : Dividing this list 

 into halves, each division containing an equal number of years, it would 

 be found, speaking in general terms, that for every mild winter in the 

 first half there would be a mild winter in the second; for every long- 

 continued drought in the first division there would be a similar drought 

 in the second; for every ' old-fashioned ' winter in the first group there 

 would be an ' old-fashioned ' winter in the second. And so on through 

 the list. In other words, weather and climate have not changed from 

 the time of the landing of the earliest pilgrims on the inhospitable 

 shores of New England down to the present day. 



Vfhy the Popular Belief in Climatic Changes is Untrustworthy. — 

 Why is the popular belief in a change of climate so widespread and so 

 firmly fixed, when instrumental records all go to show that this belief is 

 erroneous? It is not easy to answer this question satisfactorily, but 

 several possible explanations may be given. The trouble arises chiefly 

 from the fact that we place absolute trust in our memories, and 

 attempt to judge such subtle things as climatic changes on the basis of 

 these memories, which are at best short, defective, and in the highest 

 degree untrustworthy. We are likely to exaggerate past events; to 

 remember a few exceptional seasons which, for one reason or another, 

 made a deep impression on us, and we thus very much overrate some 

 special event. To make use of an illustration given by another, indi- 

 vidual severe winters which, as they occur, may be some years apart, 

 seem, when looked back upon from a distance of several years later, to 

 have been close together. It is much as in the case of the telegraph 

 poles along a railroad track. When we are near the individual poles 

 they seem fairly far apart, but when we look down the track, the poles 

 seem to stand close together. The difference in the impressions made 

 upon youthful and adult minds may account for part of this miscon- 

 ception regarding changes of climate. To a youthful mind a heavy 

 snowstorm is a memorable thing. It makes a deep impression, which 

 lasts long and which in later years, when snowstorms are just as heavy, 

 seems to dwarf the recent storms in comparison with the older. The 

 same is true regarding heavy rains, or floods, or droughts. 



Changes of residence may account for some of the prevailing ideas 

 about climate. One who was brought up as a child in the country, 

 where snow drifts deeply and where roads are not quickly broken out, 

 and who later removes to a city, where the temperatures are slightly 

 higher, where the houses are warmer, and where the snow is quickly 

 removed from the streets, naturally thinks that the winters are milder 

 and less snowy than when he was a boy. Similarly, a change of resi- 

 dence from a hill to a valley, or vice versa, or from the coast to the 



