270 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
accounts for the different appearances of what we call the ‘‘new moon.” The light 
of the sun shining on it, relatively to us, underneath, at other times a little to one 
side. That these merely accidental changes of the moon that have no signifi- 
cance as a motive power, positive or negative, that they should be a power to af- 
fect the conditions that produce or prevent rain that comes, and can only come 
by the generating force or heat of the sun, is most absurd, or that it should have 
any power over the motion of the clouds which are concentrated or dispersed 
only by that power generated by the sun which we term ‘‘low barometer.” The 
prophecy of the weather based upon any such ideas as that the moon has any in- 
fluence in producing such results, is most absurd and can not be maintained by 
facts or the least show of reason, We may have evenings where the sky over 
our particular locality becomes clouded when the moon is visible, or it may be 
cloudy and after awhile the clouds pass away, but not through any agency of the 
moon. If the moon had any such power as this, it would produce the same re- 
sults every time, but we see that it does not, but rather with all sorts of moons 
we have all sorts of weather and changes which may readily be traced to a far 
more reasonable cause—that of the relative conditions of low and high barome- 
ter as effected by the great source of heat and light—the sun. 
Another source of prophecy of the weather, is something which belongs 
rather to a season than to any extended time of years—a sort of sub-prophecy 
depending upon a prophecy of cold winter and warm summer, especially at the 
poles, is that of cold in summer developed from melting icebergs as they float 
down from the Arctic seas. This summer of 1880 there are a remarkable num- 
ber of these icebergs. So the iceberg prophets are prophesying cold weather, 
especially off the Atlantic coasts. 
When it becomes better understood that the heat of certain localities de- 
pends upon the concentrated power of the sun, making what we term the area of 
low barometer, and that this concentration is ever on the move, sometimes on a 
lower line of latitude the whole year through—when this beautiful law of nature 
is understood, it will be seen that the melting or non-melting of icebergs out in 
the Atlantic ocean, will have little or no effect upon our temperature, not one- 
tenth part as much as the melting of the ice in our ice-carts as they pass along 
the streets, or the melting of the ice in the refrigerators and water coolers of our 
houses. 
Although the sun shines more directly over the equator than over the poles, 
and it is therefore warmer at the equator than at the poles, still the heat of the 
sun is not wholly concentrated there, and it is oftentimes warmer in the temperate 
zones than in the tropics, as discussed in a former paper, ‘‘ Evidence From the 
Weather Map of 1879.” 
The melting of icebergs cools the immediate surrounding water and atmos- 
phere, but its influence, like the melting of the ice in our ice houses, ice carts, 
refrigerators, or water coolers, is purely local. 
In this connection the idea suggests itself that we make a better study of 
