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Old Probabilities

Shall tomorrow's weather be fair or foul? Blow wind—blow moistly from the South, for I go afishing. "Nay, good friend," exclaims the golfer, "the day must be dry and the wind in the west." The farmer moistens his finger and points it toward the sky. "Rain, come, quickly, for my crops," is his prayer. But the maiden's voice is full of pleading: "Let the sun shine tomorrow that my heart may be light on my wedding day."

And so, through the days and seasons, humanity with all its varied needs, turns anxiously, entreatingly to Old Probabilities. And how is it possible for him to satisfy the conflicting demand? He may, on the same day, please the farmer in the West, the fisherman in the South, the golfer in the northern hills, and the bride in the eastern town. But how can he suit them all in one locality on a single day? Old Probabilities is willing and he loves humanity, but his powers and privileges are limited. There are those who say that it is due to the kind endeavors of Old Probabilities to satisfy everybody that our weather has at times become so strangely mixed.

Old Probabilities is a gentle family name and came out of the affection of the people. The name was a matter of pleasantry. It was given to the Chief of the United States Weather Bureau when the department was first established by Congress, and its source lay in the phrase, "It is probable," with which all the weather predictions began. But Old Probabilities, genial prophet and lover of his fellow men, is passing away, for the officer who organized the Weather Bureau became in time displeased with the name and changed the form of the daily prediction so as to read, "The indications are." The phrase is formal and severe. There is naught but cold comfort in it. Our hearts turn back fondly to Old Probabilities and his friendly assurance: "It is probable that tomorrow will be fair."

Chickamauga Park, Tenn., in an Ice Storm

THE WEATHER

By CHARLES FITZHUGH TALMAN

Librarian of the U. S. Weather Bureau

THE MENTOR   ·   DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE   ·   JULY 1, 1916

STATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES WEATHER BUREAU

Showing two extreme types: one, an office on the twenty-ninth floor of the Whitehall Building, New York City, with instruments installed on the roof; the other, an independent observatory building, with free exposure on all sides, at St. Joseph, Mo.

It is easy to lay too much stress upon the unimportant aspects of weather. It furnishes a bit of conversation over the teacups; it accentuates the twinges of rheumatism; it spoils a holiday. All this, however, is mere byplay.

The real work of the weather—the work that explains the existence of costly weather bureaus, such as the one upon which our Government spends more than a million and a half dollars annually—is momentous beyond calculation. Consider such facts and figures as these:

The head of the British Meteorological Office recently declared that bad weather costs the farmers of the British Isles about one hundred million dollars a year. In our own country it has been estimated that a difference of one inch in the rainfall occurring during July in six States means a difference of two hundred and fifty million dollars in the value of the corn (maize) crop. The world over, the damage wrought by hail-storms is said to average about two hundred million dollars a year. In the city of Galveston a single hurricane once destroyed twenty million dollars' worth of property and six thousand human lives. Thus we might proceed indefinitely.

The fact is that man's welfare is conditioned to an enormous extent and in an endless variety of ways by the vicissitudes of the atmosphere; hence the study of weather—meteorology—is one of the most important of sciences. It is also one of the most strikingly neglected!

At the office of the Weather Bureau in Washington there is a meteorological library of some thirty-five thousand volumes. But meteorological libraries are rare; meteorological books are scarce in other libraries; and meteorologists are so uncommon that whoever declares himself one is likely to be asked, "What is a meteorologist?"

The "meteors" studied by the meteorologist are not shooting stars, but the phenomena of the atmosphere,—rain and snow, cloud and fog, wind and sunshine, and whatever else enters into the composition of weather and climate.

Entered as second-class matter, March 10, 1913, at the postoffice at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1916, by The Mentor Association, Inc.

THE ATMOSPHERE

The ocean of air in which human beings live, even as deep-sea fishes live at the bottom of the liquid ocean, is called the