WEATHER FORECASTS. 307 



failure; the company surrendered its charter, and the settlements 

 were absorbed by the ISTew Zealand Government. They neverthe- 

 less contributed greatly to the colonization of a country then covered 

 with forests and occupied by cannibals. Together with the two 

 ecclesiastical provinces of Otago and Canterbury, they have com- 

 municated the energy and self-reliance that distinguish the " Britain 

 of the South." 



If the foregoing classification of colonial origins be correct, 

 two conclusions necessarily follow: First, colonial societies in their 

 mature state have not been developed out of the primitive loose 

 aggregations of various kinds which everywhere sprang up in favor- 

 able circumstances, but are rather founded upon them, as the Plio- 

 cene on the Miocene strata. ISText, the part which intention and 

 design, conscious and organized action, have played in social evolu- 

 tion is greater than sociologists have hitherto been willing to admit. 

 And as, in virtue of the law that the development of an individual is 

 a recapitulation of the development of its ancestral species, the gene- 

 sis of colonies is a rehearsal of the genesis of all societies, social ori- 

 gins will have to be studied a little less from imagination and a good 

 deal more from history than has yet been attempted. 



WEATHEE FORECASTS: THE MANNER OF MAKING 

 THEM AND THEIR PRACTICAL VALUE. 



By E. J. PRINDLE. 



~TT7^E are not always conscious of the great influence which the 

 » ▼ weather exerts on our affairs. Fair weather gives zest and 

 interest to everything, while dark clouds depress us and take the 

 life and sparkle from that which was before most attractive. In 

 cases of severe illness the weather sometimes makes all the difference 

 between life and death. Our emotions are largely under its control. 

 The farmer's first thought in the morning and his last consciousness 

 at night relate to the weather. The sailor, the pleasure seeker, the 

 shopper, and the builder are all deeply concerned with the weather, 

 to say nothing of the children, whose lives are quickly limited to the 

 four walls of the house on the approach of bad weather. 



It is a matter of so much concern that our Government spends 

 annually about nine hundred thousand dollars for the maintenance of 

 its Weather Bureau, in order that we may know a few hours before- 

 hand what to expect of the elements. 



The first attempt at scientific forecasting of the weather was the 

 result of a storm which, during the Crimean War, November 14, 



