628 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
obtained to enlighten us in regard to the weather. These facts have all been 
gathered and put into shape by our complete Weather Bureau, and are daily 
spread before us on the Weather map. He who will learn to read and understand 
this simple yet wonderful contribution to the scientific knowledge of the world 
will see more and more beauty and wonder in the works of nature than was ever 
dreamed of in the days of the old Farmer’s Almanac. With all this we have a 
man now attempting to revive and compete with the old Farmers’ Almanac— 
endeavoring to make the people believe that it is something wonderful to guess 
what the weather will be months in advance. If this man would only come out 
boldly and proclaim that his efforts are all guess work, founded upon the weather 
of previous years, and say that from facts recorded there is a possibility of the 
weather repeating itself occasionally, and therefore we may possibly, at a certain 
time, have a certain kind of weather, all well and good. But the weather does 
not repeat itself wholly. There is a similarity at times, but nothing regular 
enough to warrant any fixed statement that can be depended upon. 
The storms which have occurred in the United States the last half of this 
month, December, 1880, well illustrate and may well be taken as a good example 
of the dependence that may be placed on the weather prophecies (?) of Mr. Ven- 
nor. 
If the public were better informed as to the laws governing the weather of 
the globe, instead of creating a surprise that so many have faith in such state- 
ments and claims, the surprise would be that any man of scientific knowledge 
would have the least respect for them, at least unless Mr. Vennor world distinctly 
put them on the basis of mere guess-work and let them be understood to be 
such. It is no new thing, nor anything patented to Mr. Vennor, that there is a 
similarity between the weather of the months of the different years; but though 
there may be this similarity in the weather, it never wholly repeats itself. Yet, 
with all this, people wonder, and even demand, why the U. S. Weather Bureau 
does not compete with this man. If people will only study the Weather map 
sufficiently to understand the laws that govern the weather, they will readily tell 
why. But this they will not do, but, instead, prefer to remain in ignorance, and 
then foolishly demand of the Weather Bureau a physical impossibility. The 
Weather Bureau could guess at the weather for ten or even a hundred years ahead; 
but suppose they should attempt it, would these people be one-tenth as charitable 
toward it, as a government institution, as they are now toward a private indi- 
vidual? One can safely say that they would not be. Then no sensible man, 
with full knowledge of the laws of meteorology, would want to attempt such a 
thing, for he well knows that there is no certainty in the weather of different 
years repeating itself. There may be a similarity, but that is all. 
Mr. Vennor pretends to forecast the weather. His pretensions consist in 
statements as to great storms and very general comments as to what will be. 
Does it not strike sensible men as absurd that a man should only be able to fore- 
tell great snow storms and great commotions generally, and not specifically ? 
