290 A NEW VIEW OF THE WEATHER QUESTION. 



from his point of view, and as the same appears to him. And now he stands like 

 others interested in this beautiful study, awaiting further developments. Of 

 course he would like to have future developments sustain what he has here set 

 forth, yet he trusts that he will be enabled to see new facts in an impartial light, 

 and if, perchance, more light should prove him in error as to conclusions, that 

 nevertheless there may be found in this paper some points that maybe of interest 

 to those who seek to investigate the mysterious forces that go to make up our 

 weather system. And he further hopes that the interest of the people at large 

 will be general, and of so earnest a nature as to sustain the labors of those who 

 are engaged in the duty of collecting facts pertaining to this branch of science, 

 and extend to them a practical sympathy whereby they may be the better enabled 

 to follow up the great work before them ; and further, that this sympathy may so 

 extend that the nations of the earth may enter into fellowship with each other in 

 collecting facts that bear upon this subject; for only by such cosmopolitan meas- 

 ures can we hope to gain important facts from all quarters of the globe, whereby 

 we may become familiar with the weather system or systems of the world. For 

 this purpose we should have facilities to collect facts, not only from the civilized 

 countries and places easy of access, but from such places as at present are quite 

 inaccessible, either from peculiar conditions of people or climate. 



PROGNOSTICATIONS. 



After reading these Statements and Comments the reader may inquire if there 

 is no way for the individual, unaided by instruments, to forecast the weather. 

 There are certain signs which if one will note from time to time whereby they 

 may become quite expert, but then these personal prognostications must necessa- 

 rily be confined to the local conditions. The individual from his local standpoint 

 cannot tell what the general conditions are ; and herein is where the labors of the 

 signal office particularly become of value, and of greater value than it is possible 

 for the prognostications of the local observer to be, even to his own locality, for 

 the general always governs the local, and knowledge of what is and has been, 

 gives more value to the judgment of the future. A single individual standing 

 on the ground cannot command a very wide horizon, and even on the housetop 

 cannot command anything like the extended region of one who is up in a balloon 

 two or three miles above the earth. The single individual, even aided by instru- 

 ments, can only know of the conditions of his immediate vicinity; while the 

 Signal Office from its daily reports is able to see the conditions of the whole 

 country ; it can note the rate, direction and intensity of the storm center, and 

 from these form a very accurate calculation as to the probability of its passing 

 along a certain line, and in influencing the weather at a particular locality; yet, 

 notwithstanding this, almanac makers and others think they have, or pretend to 

 have, some system different from the natural laws of calculation whereby they 

 can tell what the weather will be a year in advance ; and, to make their preten- 

 sions more absurd, they make no distinction between different localities, when it 

 is a well-known fact, and now easily demonstrated, that two localities quite near 

 each other may have, and often do have, quite different weather — one being hot 



