274 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
There are many reasons why. ‘There are many people of exacting nature in 
the world, who always want positive statements that such and such zé¢l/ de or wall 
not be the case, and their natures cannot conceive any circumstances but what the 
human mind can control; and when ‘‘ circumstances” is mentioned to them, they 
have no place for the word in their lexicons, and with Napoleon I. when in suc- 
cess, they exclaim, ‘‘I make circumstances;” by and by a Waterloo comes and 
they’see perhaps when too late, that there are circumstances which even the strong- 
est man*cannot control. If in the affairs of men there are ‘‘ circumstances” be- 
yond the control of these strong men, much more are there circumstances in na- 
ture that man must abide by. Nature is endless in her varieties, and man is 
powerless to prevent or at all times even to foretell her exact course. Probably 
nothing better illustrates this than to pour some water down aslightly inclined plane 
and note its course. We know that water will run down hill, but it does not take 
what appears to be the most direct course. We know and can readily predict 
that it will take, if left to itself, a certain general course, but when the practical 
reality takes place, we not only discover that it takes a course of its own, but that 
it passes over certain lines and circumvents spots, even in so small a surface as a 
few yards in length, that it was and would be impossible for human knowledge to 
specify or indicate before-hand. This being the case in nature when confined to 
a few yards square, what must be the effect of an area of low-barometer passing 
over variable territory of more than a hundred miles square. 
The Signal Office can tell the course of all regular storms, but occasionally 
there happens an irregular change, which is analagous to this running of water 
down hill, as seen in the course of almost every river large or small in the world. 
In conclusion, I repeat there is no other reliable process than that of the Sig- 
nal Service system, whereby we may foretell the weather. All other known systems, 
if I may so designate or honor them, whether founded on the conditions of the 
moon, the habits of animals, the relation of the other planets to the planet on 
which we live, or the guess-work founded or unfounded on the weather of pre- 
vious years—all these I hereby pronounce the merest nonsense, if not something 
worse—and that all these things are unworthy of any man who makes any pretense 
to scientific knowledge or claims any standing in advanced society. 
From Kansas City Medical and Surgical Review, No. 5, May,1860: The amount 
of rain which has fallen since the first of January, 1860, is 6.60 inches, a smaller 
amount than has fallen here, in the same length of time, in any year since 1854, 
when there was absolutely no rain from June until October. 
From a clipping of a Kansas City paper, September, 1860: August 21st, 
1860, at the chemical works, Waltham, Mass., the rain gauge showed a fall of| 
5% inches of water in a little over an hour. 
