56 Kansas Acadc?ny of Science. 



and Wisconsin, and is approximately three-fourths of the 

 average for the state of Iowa for that season of the year. 



It is true that droughts occur from time to time in Kansas, 

 but by far the greater number of them are confined to the 

 western counties, w^here the chief crops are those that can be 

 produced with Hght precipitation. A chart issued by the 

 Weather Bureau shows that the occurrence of droughts during 

 the crop-growing season in the eastern part of the state is 

 scarcely more frequent than in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, or even 

 the New England states, and less frequent than over most of 

 Wisconsin, yet none of these states is spoken of as being 

 droughty. It is interesting to note in this connection that the 

 combined value of the wheat and corn raised in Kansas has 

 exceeded the combined value of these two crops in any other 

 state more than once in recent years, and that over 50 percent 

 of the state's yield of these is produced in the middle third, 

 where the average annual precipitation ranges from twenty- 

 two to thirty-two inches, and droughts (periods of thirty con- 

 secutive days or more without at least a quarter of an inch of 

 precipitation within twenty-four hours' time) have occurred on 

 an average of once a year in the crop season for the past 

 twenty years. 



To give Kansas credit for being the "cyclone state" is al- 

 most as erroneous as to use the term "cyclone" instead of 

 tornado to designate these violent whirling storms with the 

 funnel-shaped cloud. That tornadoes do occur within the 

 state practically every year cannot be denied, but it should be 

 considered that, while the area of the state exceeds 80,000 

 square miles, the path of an average storm of this character 

 does not cover more than three square miles, and many are 

 a great deal smaller, so that the path of one can generally be rep- 

 resented by a pin scratch less than an inch long on a map of 

 the state the size of one usually given in an atlas. 



In one of the most complete reports on tornadoes of the 

 United States ever published, Prof. A. J. Henry, of the 

 Weather Bureau, gives the total number for the eight-year 

 period, 1889-1896, in the different states. This shows that 

 when the relative area of the states concerned is considered, 

 the number of tornadoes in Kansas per unit area is practically 

 the same as the corresponding number in Iowa, and but 

 slightly greater than the number per unit area in Illinois, 



