140 MICHIGAN ACADEMY OP SCIENCE. 



same as employed by the Michigan Weather Service, thus enabling com- 

 parisons to be made with facility. 



The accompanying table gives rates for several other important causes 

 of death, whose graphic representation would be of great interest. 



Besides the rates for Michigan, death rates are presented for the 

 States of Connecticut, New York, and for the Province of Ontario, in 

 all of which mortality statistics are collected and promptly published 

 soon after the end of each month. There is a favorable prospect also 

 that data from Indiana and Wisconsin may soon be available for this 

 purpose. 



As it is, we have statistics of the most important causes of death for 

 Michigan and other states representing an aggregate population of 

 about one-seventh of the United States, available for comparative study 

 in connection with the statistics of weather, within 30 days after the 

 close of each month. The timely interest of such studies is obvious, as 

 they may be made while the phenomena considered are still fresh in the 

 minds of the people. 



It is the purpose of calling attention to this fact and of soliciting the 

 interest of the members of this Academy in this class of work that 

 excuses the presentation of this hastily prepared paper. For obvious 

 reasons, the detailed analysis of the data of mortality and weather, 

 in all its bearings, is impossible within the reasonable limits and scope 

 of a monthly report. In such a report it is only possible, as a rule, to 

 provide the raw material, in as convenient a form for use as possible, 

 and its further study must depend on the number and activity of those 

 interested. Since the discontinuance of Climate and Health, published 

 a short time by the United States Department of Agriculture, there 

 has been no systematic attempt to make such comparative studies for 

 any considerable portion of the United States, and hence the field is 

 practically unoccupied. Should any member of the Academy desire, I 

 presume that the directors of Vital Statistics of the states now pub- 

 lishing monthly bulletins would be pleased to send them regularly for 

 the purpose of comparative study, and so far as the Michigan service is 

 concerned, we shall not only be glad to cordially co-operate in supply- 

 ing the data for such work, but may also be able, to some degree, to 

 assist in presenting such papers to the attention of students of meteorol- 

 ogy and demography through the pages of the Bulletin. 



Lansing, Mich., March 27, 1899. 



