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H\ W. I". I-'osTKR, Washington. I). ('. 



WASI 1 1 XCiI'OX, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and other scientists 

 of their lime believed that we may know of future weather 

 1>_\ its past and therefore, on their recommendations, many academic 

 and other educational institutions made careful records of tempera- 

 tures, rainfall and other weather events. About 1840 the Smith- 

 sonian Institution n;ave that idea a great impetus and under its man- 

 agement a large number of new weather records were started in 

 various American localities and the older records, made at numerous 

 places were collected and preserved by binding. In 1871 the U. S. 

 ^^'eather Bureau was organized and it continued and extended the 

 weather records recommended by our early American scientists. As 

 a result we now have a number of good records, including every day 

 for more than one hundred years and a large number covering less 

 time. 



Those records are potentially of immense value and only by their 

 use may we know future weather more than a week in advance. In 

 all weather investigations the hypotheses, or theories, as to the causes 

 of weather changes in America must be compared with and tested by 

 these records. When a system for forecasting weather events is form- 

 ulated those old and new records must be used and the forecasts 

 mathematically worked out from their numbers. 



To solve this most difficult and most important problem has been 

 the larger part of the writer's life work. About half time was given 

 to it from December, 1875, to August, 1890, and since the latter date 

 whole time, with no other business. In March, 1903, the writer came 

 to Washington in order better to secure and use the weather records, 

 old and new, now on deposit in the U. S. Welather Bureau, and the 

 astronomical records of the solar system, open to all investigators at 

 the U. S. Naval Observatory. Besides the work of this investigator 

 he has paid out more than $20,000 for records and experiments. 



The hypothesis used, now advanced by the writer to a theory and 

 the Golden Rule of Planetary Weatherology is stated thus: "Similar 

 relative positions of Sun, Moon, Earth and major planets cause 

 similar weather." 



Perfect weather forecasts never have been, never will be made. 

 Some, who have pretended to investigate the writer's crop-weather 

 forecasts formulated rules of verification requiring perfect forecasts. 

 Tested by such rules all forecasts must fail. Prof. H. H. Clayton, 

 meteorologist of Blue Hill, Mass., meteorological observatory near 

 Boston, wrote a complete set of rules for testing crop-weather fore- 

 casts in 1904, and these rules were included in the Bard Bill, 

 No. 5277, introduced in the Senate March 26, 1904, and referred to 

 the Committee on Agriculture. The bill offered compensation to 

 anyone who would work out, for the Government's use, a practical, 



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