43° 



WILLIAM BOWIE 



There were 124 stations in the United States which were used 

 in the investigation of the regional distribution of compensation. 

 We shall speak of the three regional distributions as Zones K, M, 

 and O, 1 since the distances given above are the outer limits of those 

 zones. The anomalies for the local and for the three regional 

 distributions of compensation are shown in Table II for the 124 

 stations. 



The values in this table give no evidence whatever in favor of 

 any one method of distribution over the others. This is probably 

 as it should be, for most of the stations considered were in topog- 

 raphy of low relief. When a station is on a plateau or a plain, it 



is evident that the method of distribution of the compensation has 

 very little effect on the anomaly. If the topography were of exactly 

 the same elevation throughout the zone, the local and regional dis- 

 tribution of compensation would give absolutely the same value. 

 The difference in the effect would increase with the increase in the 

 difference in elevation of the topography in different parts of the zone. 

 While some of the stations might have larger anomalies by some 

 one of the methods than by the others, there would be other stations 

 for which the reverse would be true, and the mean anomaly for all 

 the stations by each method would necessarily tend to be the same. 

 We may assume, as was done when considering the relation of 

 the anomaly to the topography, that that method of distribution 

 is most nearly the truth which has the smallest variation in anom- 

 aly for different classes of topography. 



1 This refers to the zones used in computing the effect of topography and com- 

 pensation. See Special Publication No. 10. 



