CHAPTER IV 

 THE WEATHER 



The weather is the state of the atmosphere with respect to 

 heat and cold, wind and calm, rain and snow, sunshine and 

 cloudiness. The weather is one of the most important 

 influences affecting the daily life of all the people. In ages 

 past the weather has crumbled the rocks and formed the soil, 

 smoothed the landscape and watered the fields. By its con- 

 trol of plant life, the weather has largely determined the 

 location of the chief food-producing areas of earth. Food 

 supply, in turn, has dominated the growth of civilizations 

 and the progress of the human race. In all its work in the 

 past, the weather has been controlled by the same interesting 

 laws that govern the winds and storms of the present. Men 

 today understand many of those laws. Some of them will 

 be studied in this chapter. 



204. Beginnings and Growth of Weather Knowledge. 

 We do not know when man commenced to observe the weather; 

 but from the beginning of the human race man, like the beasts 

 of the field, must have sought shelter from storm and pro- 

 tection from cold. In time, he began to notice signs of coming 

 tempests farther and farther in advance and so sought shelter 

 in better season. Long afterward he learned enough to coin 

 sayings and proverbs about the weather. Some of these 

 date back more than 6000 years. The ancient Hindus 

 measured the rainfall; the Chaldeans named the wind direc- 

 tions; the Greeks kept records of the wind, and one of their 

 philosophers, 500 B. C., made a crude thermoscope by which 

 changes of temperature could be shown. The modern 

 thermometer and barometer were not invented until the 17th 

 century; then explorers soon began carrying thermometers on 



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