Weather Competitions 



state of affairs where most events in the 

 round of the year come with one of the four 

 winds, or are telegraphed by lightning, or 

 heralded by the drums of the rain. 



Yes, we shall have to admit that to the 

 country, in the main, belongs the epochal 

 phenomena of the weather. We must still 

 go to the remote hill-towns for all our me- 

 teorological records and extraordinary hap- 

 penings, with the single exception of sum- 

 mer heat. In that respect, indeed, the city 

 excels, but it is by virtue of abnormal con- 

 ditions, through which man artificially in- 

 tensifies a phenomenon of nature. A hot 

 wave raises the temperature of New York 

 City from five to ten degrees above that of 

 the surrounding country; but it is an ad- 

 ventitious supremacy, due to intercepted 

 air, heated bricks, and blistering pavement. 

 In no fair weather competitions would such 

 conditions be allowed. Let the temperature 

 rise or fall on its own merits, I say. And it 

 is to the credit of the average metropolitan 

 that he scorns to accept his mercurial ad- 

 vantage, in summer, as any legitimate tri- 

 umph over his country neighbor. 



But it is to the country that we must 

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