Honors for Amundsen 



65 



lions of dollars to the wealth of the 

 American people. It carries on many 

 lines of research. It distributes knowl- 

 edge very much as our own Geographic 

 Society does. It forecasts, as you know, 

 the coming of the wind and the storms ; 

 and it may be interesting tonight for me 

 to say that only yesterday, as the result 

 of one of the lines of experimentation 

 carried on under the department, an ob- 

 servation made at an altitude of four 

 thousand feet at the experimental ob- 

 servatory at Mount Weather showed the 

 curious anomaly of 38 degrees tempera- 

 ture, while the surface temperature in 

 Washington showed only 24 degrees — 14 

 degrees warmer in the upper layers of the 

 air. The forecast without that upper air 

 observation would have been snow to- 

 day. But it was apparent to the fore- 

 caster that snow could not come from or 

 through that extremely warm stratum of 

 air. This is one of the lines of experi- 

 mentation that is adding new knowledge 

 to us in a geographic sense. 



Now the responsibility for that govern- 

 ment department, so beneficent to the 

 American people in all of its purposes, lies 

 in the foresight, the wisdom, and the 

 statesmanship of the Senators and Repre- 

 sentatives of the Federal Congress. They 

 have never yet failed to give their cordial 

 support to scientific researches when it 

 meant something to benefit the American 

 people; hence the United States Con- 

 gress appropriates money — many times 

 the amount of any other country — for the 

 development and the diffusion of knowl- 

 edge. 



Now just a word, if I may, because the 

 Secretary of that department is not here ; 

 and that is that that institution is presided 

 over by the greatest practical as well as 

 theoretical agriculturist, I believe, that 

 the world has yet produced. 



Unfortunately Senator Beveridge is in- 

 disposed and is unable to respond to the 

 toast of the American forests. I look 

 over these faces and I hardly find one that 

 I would call upon without preparation to 

 respond to that toast. 



Briefly, it is certain that the welfare 

 of posterity depends upon the protecting 

 and conserving of these vast forest do- 



mains. They certainly do much to aid in 

 restraining the floods. They may not 

 change or alter the amount of precipita- 

 tion, but without any question they do 

 conserve that precipitation. They do re- 

 strain the rainfall on the various water- 

 sheds. They do render less destructive 

 the floods that come from a given precipi- 

 tation. The meteorologists are not cer- 

 tain but what the forests actually have an 

 effect upon the thermal conditions, and 

 therefore upon the rainfall itself. 



Some recent experiments we have had 

 made of the temperature over the surface 

 of the earth as modified by the earth's 

 covering have shown some very startling 

 results. As an illustration, with con- 

 tiguous surfaces that were precisely at the 

 same level, thermometers exposed two 

 feet above the surface and not a hundred 

 yards apart would show over vegetation 

 seven degrees lower temperature than 

 over a sandy surface. Many times ther- 

 mometers exposed over thickly covered 

 vegetation at night would fall far below 

 the freezing-point, while the temperature 

 over the denuded surface would be much 

 above the freezing-point. Hence it may 

 be that the forests themselves, or the de- 

 nuding of the forests, have really had an 

 effect on the climate itself. The impor- 

 tance of conserving these great areas is 

 conceded by nearly every one. I believe 

 the nation has begun amply early by its 

 wise legislation to protect these great 

 areas for the benefit of the American peo- 

 ple. 



I remember hearing at one time of a 

 banquet at which speeches were made 

 with relation to the conserving of the 

 waters of the Clyde. At the table there 

 was a young American midshipman, who 

 had partaken probably a little more of his 

 cups than he should have done, so that he 

 was not probably as politic in his remarks 

 at a foreign table as he might have been. 

 He arose and said : "Gentlemen, the Clyde 

 would not form a gargle in the mouth of 

 the Mississippi." Now the Father of 

 Waters will be responded to by one prob- 

 ably who is better qualified to respond to 

 that toast than anv other man in the 

 United States, the Honorable Theodore 

 Burton. 



