640 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



lot. Meteorology wants an extensive territory. In Europe and Asia they have 

 the territory, but their countries being independent of each other and there being" 

 no united action between them, with the exception of Russia, they are all toa 

 small to study meteorology in. In Europe and Asia they can never make a suc- 

 cess of this study until they establish their stations without regard to country lines 

 and send their daily reports into some common centre, or they might make a 

 compromise in this and send the reports in to some three or four centres. 



In order to establish where storms come from, at least how they pass over 

 the country, we want stations over an extended territory — the greater the extent 

 of the territory and the greater the number of stations the better, at least we want 

 a sufficient number of stations to make the work reliable. 



There is a common idea that all our storms come from the tropics. About 

 the middle of November a short article appeared in the New York Sun to this- 

 effect ; it was extensively copied by the papers throughout the country and was- 

 given a free and wide advertisement. 



Now, I have claimed in all these papers that there is no way of studying the 

 weather but by the weather-map. The Weather- Map of the United States is the 

 most complete thing in this line the world has ever seen, for the simple reason 

 that territory favors us ; were we divided into a number of small countries we 

 should be no better in this respect than Europe, but here we have an extent of 

 territory 3,000 miles from west to east. The writer in the New York Sun very 

 modestly (?) admits, first, that he don't know much about the weather, but this- 

 much he does know " that most of our storms come from the tropics." It is evi- 

 dent that this man does not see the weather-map, for if he did he would not have 

 made such a statement. The weather-map shows the storm-centres ("Low") 

 appearing in the west and taking their course toward the east sometimes on one 

 line of latitude and sometimes on another, and not unfrequently changing from 

 the south to the north, and even the reverse, as they advance. For the past six 

 months not more than two or three have apparently come from the south, and 

 indeed only one may be said to have come direct from the tropics, that which 

 centered over Charleston, S. C, on the 27th of August, and which on the 24th 

 was reported to be at St. Thomas, with a direction toward our coast. 



We are wanting in stations in this quarter of the globe, so we cannot explain 

 the course of such " Lows," yet from the similar course of many over the United 

 States, I am under the impression that when one of these "Lows" comes up from 

 the south, taking so nearly a due north line, it is simply an erratic course of 

 a " Low " that was travelling on some southern line, as we frequently see in the 

 United States. It not unfrequently happens that a south "Low" with us, one 

 that is picked up in Texas, instead of keeping on a straight or comparatively 

 straight hne, takes a line for 1,500 miles almost due north. This being the case 

 where we have stations and can prove it, does it not seem that it may likewise be 

 the case with these erratic "Lows" which once in a great while come up direct 

 from the West Indies ? 



