THE WEATHER-PROPHET FARCE. 351 



great knowledge of geography was claimed for some person, and he even claimed 

 for himself that he was in this branch of knowledge superior ti3 the rest of the 

 world, and he was asked some ten or a dozen questions as to the location of 

 places, etc., and he should answer only two or three correctly and then the public 

 should shut their ears to his mistakes but praise him generally, and give him great 

 credit for the few right answers, and by their words imply that he knew it all and 

 better than anyone else. Would it not seem absurd? Yes, it would, because 

 we as a people understand geography pretty well, but when it comes to the 

 weather even the intelligent world is surprisingly ignorant, and this ignorance 

 shuts our eyes to a multitude of errors and makes us grasp a few points of seem- 

 ing wisdom as the fullness of wisdom itself. 



When a man willingly takes a stand before the world and lets it be linder- 

 stood, and even claims fbr himself, that his wisdom in a certain line is superior 

 to the rest of mankind he must expect to have his work weighed in the balance, 

 and if found wanting, to be condemned and rejected. 



It is astonishing that so few people of intelligence have considered it worth 

 their while to study the beautiful yet simple laws which go to make up our weath- 

 er system. 



Although it is claimed that the " Great Canadian Weather Prophet " is a 

 wise man, he has not thus far given the world one new idea in regard to the 

 weather; indeed, any knowledge of the laws of storms, any information as to the 

 changes of the seasons, from heat to cold and cold to heat, would only tend to 

 reveal the fact that the system based upon the idea of weather periodically re- 

 peating itself, and weather prophecies based thereon are of no value. But we 

 often hear it said "He hit it this time." If any intelligent person will study the 

 weather map every day, even for a month, and note the changes, following them 

 up day after day they will, I think, see the great absurdity of the idea of "hitting 

 it." Knowledge on a subject like this is not like firing at a mark. 



The changes of the weather follow certain fixed laws and are the result of 

 certain combinations of forces. These forces do not follow in fixed grooves. 

 In this respect nature much resembles a kaleidoscope and is as endless in her 

 varieties of storm and sunshine as in the varied forms of her clouds ; and I 

 am thinking that when we can carry our mathematics to such an extent that we 

 can calculate the changes of form and color in the kaleidoscope in advance we can 

 then hope to calculate with certainty the exact changes of nature in advance; 

 until then we must be satisfied to take the weather as we find it revealed on the 

 daily map. As often explained in these papers we can with considerable cer- 

 tainty forecast the weather from three to four days in advance, i. e. from one 

 change to another (from one "Low " to another). We cannot do any more and 

 we cannot always do this. The length of time ahead depends upon the changes 

 made by nature. 



During midsummer it is more difficult to say when there will be a storm than 

 during the spring months, for the reason that the storm-centers, or "Low" so 

 continually travel on such a high fine of latitude, and there is often so little 



