Allied with Astronomy are the two co-ordinate branches, Seis- 

 molog>' and Atmospheric Phenomena, to whose study have resulted 

 the erection by nearly all our great universities and astronomical 

 observatories of the most elaborate and delicate seismic annunciators, 

 and by our Government at Washington, the establishment of the 

 Weather Bureau, which has been of incalculable benefit to our 

 country 



Students of Seismology have announced that, eliminating from 

 consideration the contraction of our earth in its cooling process, the 

 great factor for producing earthquakes, is the powerful and united 

 attraction of the planets when in conjunction or opposition with the 

 earth 



On December 22, 1892, and before he became President of this 

 Academy of Sciences, Mr. William A. Spalding, in a lecture before 

 The Teachers' Institute at Los Angeles, predicted that in 1906, the 

 equinox of Saturn would be almost exactly superimposed upon that 

 of Jupiter, and the other planets Mars, the Earth, Venus and 

 Mercury dropping into line and their disturbing influences being 

 united, if there were anything in the belief that their united forces 

 of attraction were of a measurable estimate, terrestrial convulsions 

 would occur, or, as he put it, "Then, if there is anything in this 

 system, look out for something to pop." 



None of us in Californa have forgotten how terribly that an- 

 nouncement was verified 



About the first of September, 1910, Professor Simon Sarasola, 

 President of the Colegio De Belen, at Havana, Cuba, who, during 

 many years, had studied the atmospheric phenomena of the Gulf of 

 Mexico, sent a communication to the Weather Bureau at Washing- 

 ton, announcing that on, or about September 8 of that year, a tornado 

 of unusual violence would sweep the Atlantic Coast from Mexico 

 to South Carolina, and we remember the loss of lives, of vessels and 

 the total destruction of the city of Galveston by the cataclysm on 

 that date 



Mr. Spalding and Professor Sarasola have favored us with most 

 interesting papers upon these subjects, which have been published 

 in our Bulletins, and others have, from time to time, entered into 

 these fields of investigation, some from an abstract position, others 

 in a more concrete manner, confining their eft"orts to an individual 

 or single line of study. 



Of the latter class is Mr. W. T. Foster of Washington, D. C, 

 who has been an investigator in Astronomy, Astro-physics and 

 Meterology. For many years he has regularly published a Bulletin 

 upon "Weatherology," as he calls it, which is devoted more partcu- 

 larly for the benefit of the agriculturists, with prognostications as to 

 weather conditions and advice as to what should be sown and plant ed 



