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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XV. No. 383 



over a number of years is also necessary to show what precautions 

 must be taken to prevent serious interruption of traffic ; the rec- 

 ord of snow-storms being most desirable along railroad routes, 

 and of ice periods and low water on the water ways. 



3. Manufactures and Aets. — The unremitting labor neces- 

 sary for the successful operation of manufactories is best obtained 

 in the colder climates. The arts of a nation are, many of them, 

 regulated by the nature of the climate. Water-power, while it 

 is dependent on the slope of the land and other local peculiarities for 

 the head of water, is principally influenced by the amount and reg- 

 ularity of rainfall, conditions which are favorable to alternate 

 floods and draughts being especially unfavorable to use of water- 

 power. Many articles will not stand the removal from one coun- 

 try to another having a diff'erent climate, an instance being the 

 cracking of picture frames brought to our country from the 

 moister European lands; and such instruments as the zither, we 

 are told, cannot be successfully brought to America. The manu- 

 facture of some articles requires an excess or deficiency of moist- 

 ure, as in the case of some te-xtile fabrics. The still unharnessed 

 wind-power will play an important part in our manufactures 

 when its force can be conveniently and economically transposed 

 into electrical energy. Few persons are aware that a wind-wheel 

 twenty feet in diameter, exposed at a moderate elevation above 

 the ground, will furnish on the average one horse-power through- 

 out the year, taking the average of our country east of the Rocky 

 Mountains. 



4. Insurance. — The increasing application of the principles of 

 science to insurance adjustment must include meteorological data, 

 when this begins to be carefully considered in this connection. 

 Frequent remarks in the late insurance journals show that some 

 meteorological events can no longer be excluded from the com- 

 putation of risks, and even new fields are being entered upon. 

 The recently established tornado insurance will doubtless be ex- 

 tended to include all storms; but the damages by floods are usu- 

 ally so dependent on local peculiarities, that such insurance can 

 hardly be said to have a scientific basis. Unhealthy climates, 

 and regions of scourges, which usually have marked climatic 

 features, should not be included with healthier countries in any 

 general rate of premium for life insurance. In marine insurance 

 it is possible to take into account the probability of storms, not 

 only for various seas and at different seasons of the year, but also 

 for any sailing course between two ports on any particular sea. 

 In fire insurance the high temperatures, and especially heated 

 terms, and the amounts and frequency of rainfall, must be con- 

 sidered. Nor can we neglect the wind distribution as regards 

 average velocity, and the relative frequency of high winds, and 

 especially the sudden rise of winds which may start smouldering 

 fires which are temporarily unattended. 



5. Medicine. — Climate as applied to the treatment of disease 

 has generally been studied in a desultory manner, although some 

 general rules have been formulated which are accepted by the 

 medical profession. In most cases, however, there is a wide 

 difference of opinion as to what climatic factors are the most po- 

 tent as a means of curing or preventing certain diseases ; and we 

 find physicians of the highest attainments recommending such 

 extremes as to show that individual opinion in such matters has 

 not yet given way to generally accepted results obtained by the 

 careful study of statistics. 



Each one of the climatic elements plays a special role in the 

 combined effect produced on mankind, and it is these separate ef- 

 fects which must be studied more closely. We know that great 

 daily ranges of temperature, or rapid changes from day to day, 

 are to be avoided in certain diseases, and yet for our own country 

 little data are accessible concerning the latter of these conditions. 

 In recommending long journeys (for instance, from New England 

 to California), how few physicians take into account the hygro- 

 metric and barometric conditions to be encountered en route! 

 Observations on moisture, relative amounts of sunshine and 

 cloudiness, ozone, and winds, are also necessary for determining 

 the desirability of a place of residence for invalids. 



6. Miscellaneous |)conomic Questions.— Under this heading 

 we may put a great many kinds of work in which meteorological 

 data may be very useful. All subjects connected with drainage 



require a knowledge of amount and frequency of rainfall. Rail- 

 road routes, especially where local traffic is to be the main source 

 of income, are not laid out without a careful study of the climates of 

 the countries through which they are to pass. Many engineering 

 undertakings are directly affected by the climatic elements ; as, 

 for instance, the effects of winds on bridges. The first question 

 to be answered in connection with the reclamation of our Western 

 arid lands, which interests us so much at present, is, "What is 

 the climate of the country to be reclaimed?" While our politi- 

 cians are wrangling over the question of protection and free trade, 

 few of them have recognized the bearing of climate on the ques- 

 tion. While the use of the winds in aerial navigation is not of 

 practical importance just at present, yet we have but to recall 

 their universal use as power in the flat countries of Europe to 

 show their possible application on our great plains, where a ve- 

 locity is found almost equal to that on the seacoasts. Climate 

 should be carefully considered in questions of emigration, for the 

 immigrant will usually succeed best in a country having a climate 

 similar to that which he left as an emigrant. 



Frank Waldo. 



Cinoinnati, O., May 83. 



Temperature in Storms and High Areas. 



I AM strongly of the opinion that Professor Davis has found a 

 veritable "mare's nest" in his presentation of this subject in last 

 week's Science. He is certainly nearly three years behind the 

 times; for this whole matter has been thoroughly ventilated, and 

 the palpable errors into which Dr. Hann has fallen have been 

 already pointed out (see the American Meteorological Journal, 

 October, 1887; March, 1888; July, 1889: and the Scientiiic Ameri- 

 can Supplement, June 15, 1889). The ordinary theory is, that in 

 our storms the air, up to about ten thousand feet, is abnormally 

 heated, and this causes an ascending current of moist, warm air, 

 which has its moisture condensed through the cold of expansion; 

 and that the latent heat set free serves to warm up the air, and 

 thus to produce a rarefaction, which serves to accelerate the as- 

 cending current. This acceleration in the air-current causes a 

 more rapid condensation, in turn a greater rarefaction, and so on 

 till our most violent tornadoes are evolved. It is difBcult to see 

 ■why the latent heat of condensation does not exactly balance the 

 cooling by expansion, but I leave that point for others to explain. 

 Dr. Hann himself has made a most elaborate computation of this 

 increased heat in a storm, in which he has shown that up to six- 

 teen thousand feet the average temperature in a vertical direction 

 may be about 50°, while in a high area it must be only 30° (see 

 Austrian Meteorological Journal, 1874, p. 321). Professor Ferrel 

 of our own country has written hundreds of pages in which the 

 essential point is that there is an ascending current of moist 

 heated air in our storms. In all his theories he has followed most 

 closely the theoretical results deduced by Hann. All this, and I 

 may say the pet theories of a dozen other authorities, are brushed 

 away with a single stroke of the pen: they vanish as an ethereal 

 essence into thin air, out of which we may say they were rea- 

 soned on exceedingly unsubstantial grounds. 



These would seem most important conclusions, and should not 

 be put forth without incontestable facts to establish them. Let 

 us inquire into the nature of this evidence. 1st, Dr. Hann's ob- 

 servations are all made in the Alps, a region two thousand miles 

 to the south-east of the average track of storms, also a region fif- 

 teen hundred miles from the nearly permanent winter high area 

 in Siberia. Surely we are not to consider that it is possible to get 

 an idea of the distribution of temperature in the centres of our 

 storms and high areas under these conditions. The pressm-e un- 

 doubtedly rises and falls in the Alps; but the storms that cross 

 there are in the nature of secondaries, and there is no opportunity 

 to study real storms. No one ought to think that a study of 

 temperature in the border of a storm and five hundred or a thou- 

 sand miles from its centre, can give the central conditions. 2d, 

 It would be a great mistake to study simply a fall or rise in press- 

 ure on a mountain as the passage of a storm or high area. One 

 of the greatest falls in pressure on Pic du Midi, in France, ac- 

 companied a high area, and was caused by the intense cold. This 



