90 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



repeating itself and that the changes which nature can produce are infinite, and 

 that there are no mathematics by which they can be determined; indeed, it is- 

 not within the province of mathematics. Might as well, by mathematics, attempt 

 to determine what our life will be on the morrow, or what will be the character 

 of the next person whom we will meet on the street. The influence of the moon 

 on the weather has already been treated at length in these pages, so I will simply 

 call the reader's attention to the general fact that every night when the moon is 

 shining it shines over all sorts of weather from cold to warm and from cloudy and 

 stormy to clear and pleasant. Those who believe in the influence of the moon 

 never seem to think of this, and that the moon's influence, if it has any, should 

 on the same night produce such different results — drive clouds away in one place, 

 coUect them in another, etc. 



The old notion about rain was that it was from clouds that were formed over 

 some large expanse of water, that these clouds were carried by the wind toward 

 some high mountain range and that in passing over the tops of these mountains 

 the clouds were condensed, precipitating rain over the country! This idea shows 

 that if man knows not of any good and perfect reason for a cause or phenomenon 

 — his ' ' causality " will invent one in accordance with his knowledge. The author 

 of this idea never seems to have followed it out to its logical sequence; if he had, 

 he would have discovered it to be necessary to have mountain ranges and large seas 

 alternately pretty well distributed and that near the mountains they would have 

 much rain, while at a distance therefrom they would have little or none. Practically 

 the mountain ranges are few and far between, while the great bodies of land and 

 water are by themselves, and we have just as much rain away from the mountains 

 as near them. Clouds are found everywhere when there is sufficient moisture. 

 "Low," herein so frequently spoken of, is the agent which generates the wind 

 which gathers the clouds. The movement of " Low" across the country gathers 

 the clouds and carries them with it, and precipitation takes place along the track 

 of "Low." 



Another common idea is that the rain must turn a certain way in order that 

 we should have a "good clear-off." Many such ideas, which, however, are not 

 of much account, had a reasonable origin, and though in one sense absurd, may 

 be excused in those who know nothing of the movements of storms. The origin 

 of this idea was this: In the winter and spring many of our storms travel on a 

 low line of latitude and pass us to the southward. In this case the turn of the 

 rain will be from the NE. to the NW., whereas, later in the season when " Low " 

 gets up on a high line the turn will be the reverse, from the SE. to the SW. 



Then there is the notion that the different names, tornado, hurricane and 

 cyclone, etc., must indicate different conditions. Before the age of the weather- 

 map — before we knew what a storm was and what produces these conditions, it 

 was not surprising that these different terms were invented to designate supposed 

 different forces. The weather-map reveals to us that all these terms essentially 

 represent one and the same thing. All our storms come and can only come 

 through the agent " Low" (low barometer). Tornadoes, hurricanes, cyclones, call 



