K^lSrSA-S CITY 



Review of Science and Industry, 



A MONTHLY RECORD OF PROGRESS IN 



SCIENCE, MECHANIC ARTS AND LITERATURE. 

 VOL VI. MAY, 1882. NO. 1. 



METEOROLOGY. 



METEOROLOGICAL SUB-CONDITIONS. 



BY C. A. SHAW, MADISON, WIS. 



It seems to be more and more apparent that meteorology belongs to that 

 order of experimental science which depends upon a calculation of contingencies. 

 It resembles medical practice in the fact that for every individual ease the treat- 

 ment must be modified. General principles exist, are to be known, but the em- 

 pirical practitioner is sometimes more successful in the cure of special diseases. It 

 is hardly possible that in the future it can be safely said : ' ' Two years from date 

 such an epidemic will prevail and such a treatment of all attacked must be resort- 

 ed to." Even if the first statement was acceded to the second would not be re- 

 ceived without opposition. In fact, the difference between a scientific practi- 

 tioner and the reverse is that the first is not so certain of fixed remedies. He ac- 

 cepts once for all the dictum that. " circumstance alter cases," and that "good 

 sense is something that all science needs to make any remedy successful." 



In meteorology what is known bears a very small ratio to what is unknown, 

 and the final "why is it," is still less definite than the general term " it may be 

 expected." Even in civil engineering, field-practice modifies a good many 

 theories of the school-room, and the text-book is found lamentably deficient in 

 those details called practical, which are the frequent obsticles that inexperience 



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