588 The National Geographic Magazine 



Photo by H. C. Frankenfield 



Wreckage at Kansas Cit}', Missouri, after the Subsidence of the Kansas River 



Flood of 1903 



for similar service. It has a staff of 

 man}' hundred skilled experts and trained 

 observers, who in all parts of the country 

 are constantly on the watch to see what 

 the heavens will bring forth. 



A DIVIDEND OF TWO THOUSAND PER CENT 



Probably ninety-nine men in one hun- 

 dred judge the Weather Bureau by the 

 weather forecasts which they read at the 

 breakfast table in the morning paper. They 

 execrate and ridicule the service when 

 they are caught at their office or at the 

 theater unprepared for an unheralded 

 shower, and as likely as not unhesitat- 

 ingly assume to themselves the credit 

 when the forecast is right. Will it be 

 fair or will it rain ? How hot or how cold 

 has it been today? They believe the 

 Weather Bureau was created to answer 



these questions correctly, and always cor- 

 rectly, for their personal gratification. 

 They do not know that the local weather 

 forecasts are only a fraction of the work 

 and a very small and unimportant frac- 

 tion at that. 



Some time ago a skeptical insurance 

 company determined to investigate the 

 amount of property saved in one year by 

 the warnings of the Weather Bureau. It 

 was a company of conservative men, 

 whose estimate would be under rather 

 than above the truth, but it found that 

 on an average the people of the United 

 States saved every year $30,000,000 be- 

 cause of their weather service. As the 

 people contribute $1,500,000 every year 

 to its support, this means that they get 

 annually a dividend of 2,000 per cent 

 on the investment. An investment in 



