JOURNAL 



OF THE 



WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



Vol. io MARCH 19, 1920 No. 6 



METEOROLOGY. —A bundle of meteorological paradoxes.^ W. 

 J. Humphreys, Weather Bureau. 



The scientific paradox is only an exception to some famiHar 

 but too inclusive generalization. It, therefore, has both the ap- 

 peal of the riddle and the charm of surprise — the surprise, the 

 instant the truth is seen, of a sudden and unexpected discovery — 

 and thus affords the same sort of intellectual delight that I 

 once knew a student of geometry to experience. The proposi- 

 tion, one of Euclid's best, was the Pythagorean, often carelessly 

 called the pons asinomm. The boy in question was of that sturdy 

 type that always insists on being "shown," and not understand- 

 ing this proposition, flatly refused to accept it. A little coaching 

 at the blackboard, however, soon got him past his initial troubles 

 and so fixed his attention that as the truth flashed upon him with 

 the final "therefore," he blurted out, in the ecstatic surprise of 

 an Archimedes, and with the same oblivion to his surroundings, 



"Well, I'll be damned if it ain't so." 



Whether the following paradoxes do or do not evoke such 

 joyous acclamations as the one just quoted, they, nevertheless 

 deserve to be concisely stated and fully explained for they ex- 

 press important facts of nature, unknown to, or, at most, but 

 vaguely realized by the average person. 



AIR PUSHED NORTH BLOWS EAST 



This paradoxical behavior of the air is restricted, it should be 

 said, to the northern hemisphere; but it seems just as contrarious 



' Address of the retiring president of the Philosophical Society of Washington, 

 delivered January 31, 1920. 



153 



