Charles Fitzhugh Talman

“ The weather with which human beings are concerned may be said to extend upward seven or eight miles; i.e., to the level of the higher clouds. The layer of the atmosphere lying between sea-level and the upper cloud level has certain characteristics that distinguish it from the air above it, and is known as the troposphere.
The heating of the atmosphere by the sun is the beginning of all weather, and the temperature of the air is the most important weather element. As soon as we begin to study atmospheric temperature, we encounter a paradox. ”

“ A fog is a cloud lying at the earth's surface.
Rainfall is one of the most important elements of climate, chiefly because of its effects upon vegetation. It is measured in terms of the depth of water that would lie on the ground if none of it ran off, soaked in, or evaporated; and this is, in practice, determined by collecting the rain, as it falls, in a suitable receiver, or rain-gauge. Usually the gauge is so shaped as to magnify the actual depth of rainfall, in order to facilitate measurement. Snow is measured in two ways ”

“ It would be necessary to go to some length to explain the familiar electrical manifestations of the thunderstorm—some points, indeed, are not perfectly clear to meteorologists—but it should be stated that these are always the result, not the cause, of the storm. Lightning is an electrical discharge between cloud and earth, or cloud and cloud, and thunder is simply the violent soundwave set up by the sudden expansion of the heated air along the path of the discharge,—the same acoustic phenomenon that accompanies an ordinary explosion. ”

“ If our weather were uniform, it would furnish little matter for conversation; in fact, would hardly be weather at all. Changeableness is the salient feature of weather, and to understand weather changes one must know something about barometric pressure.
Like all other forms of matter, the invisible air has weight. At sea-level it exerts a downward pressure averaging 14.7 pounds to the square inch. Atmospheric pressure is measured by means of an instrument called the barometer, in which the weight of the air is balanced against a column of mercury. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The occasional periods of abundant snow make a more lasting impression upon our minds than the long intervals in which this element was scarce or lacking. The resulting misconception is promptly dissipated when we consult the weather records, which, in some parts of the country, extend back more than a century, and prove that there has been no actual change in the climate within the period they embrace. ”

“ Reverting to the temperature of man's environment, the reason why the atmosphere is warmest at the bottom is this: The sun's rays come to us [Pg 4] from outer space in the form of vibrations in the ether, and warm the air to only a slight extent in passing through it. They are absorbed by the ground, and converted into heat waves. The air is then warmed by contact with the warm ground. Lastly, the warming of the lower air gives rise to air-currents, which distribute the heat through the atmosphere. ”

“ It was a natural question, for lightning is the most sensational of all weather phenomena. It has always had a fearful sort of fascination for humanity. To the ancients it came as a bolt of wrath from the hand of Jove. ”

“ If the conditions of life at these high-level stations are such as to repel any but the ardent lover of science, the same is true in even greater measure of those endured by the little band of meteorologists who man the observatory maintained by the government of Argentina at Laurie Island, in the South Orkneys, on the verge of the Antarctic. Every year a party of four is sent out from Buenos Aires to spend a year of exile in this inhospitable spot, which is generally ice-bound, and has not even wireless communication with the rest of the world. ”

“ Most civilized countries possess official services for the observation and prediction of weather, though no other is organized on quite so grandiose a scale as ours. The British Meteorological Office, the Prussian Meteorological Institute, the Central Meteorological Bureau of France, and the Central Physical Observatory of Petrograd are among the leading institutions of this character in the Old World. Admirable weather services also exist in India, Japan, Australia, Canada, Argentina and elsewhere. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are two kinds of electricity, which we call positive and negative. A body is said to be charged when it has an excess of either kind, and the two kinds have a tendency to unite and neutralize each other's effects. Thunderclouds become heavily charged with electricity. We are not quite sure how this happens, but it is now commonly believed that the strong uprising currents of air that occur in the storm, in the process of breaking up the water-drops in the cloud also separate positive from negative electricity ”

“ From the seaboard west to the Mississippi Valley rain or snow had fallen within the previous twenty-four hours (indicated by shading) , and snow (indicated by S) was falling at the moment of observation at a majority of stations within this area. Elsewhere in the same region the weather was cloudy.
The foregoing remarks indicate in a general way the significance of the weather map and the principles upon which scientific weather predictions are based. The endless procession of highs and lows brings to any place on the map constant alternations of heat and cold, storm and sunshine. ”

“ 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 atmosphere. Unlike the liquid ocean, it diminishes rapidly in density from the bottom upward. At an altitude of three and one-half miles it is only half as dense as at sea-level. This is higher than the highest permanent habitations of man. Mountain-climbers and balloonists have attained greater altitudes; but above a level of about five miles the air is too greatly rarefied to support life. Balloonists who ascend still higher must carry a supply of oxygen with them. ”

“ Besides its office in Washington, where more than two hundred persons are constantly employed, the Weather Bureau has about two hundred stations, manned by professional meteorologists and observers. One of these will be found in almost every large city, while some are in towns of very modest importance. A regular Weather Bureau station is well worth a visit. The instrumental equipment of these stations is almost superhuman in the accuracy with which it sets down on paper the chronicle of weather happenings from day to day and from moment to moment. ”

“ A fog is a cloud resting on the surface of the earth. In the United States fog is commonest along the northern and middle parts of the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts. In the interior of the country, especially the western part, it is of rare occurrence, the average number of days a year with fog being less than ten.
Lastly—weather fallacies are rife. Indian summer is merely a type of mild, hazy, heavenly weather that prevails intermittently during our long American autumns. The equinoctial storm is a myth ”

“ Barometric pressure is not an element of weather, in the ordinary sense of the term, since the fluctuations of pressure that occur in the human environment are entirely inappreciable to the senses. We have seen, however, that pressure is intimately related to wind, which is a weather element of much importance. ”

“ Science has perfected the kite almost beyond recognition. It has been shorn of that crucial feature of the schoolboy article, the tail. Even the kite "string" has become several miles of steel piano wire, wound around the drum of a power-driven winch, with elaborate apparatus for recording the force of the pull, and the angles of azimuth and altitude.
Captive balloons are sometimes used for similar investigations. When, however, it is desired to attain great altitudes the meteorologist has recourse to the so-called "sounding-balloon," which is not tethered to the earth. ”

“ The highest clouds—cirrus and cirro-stratus—are feathery in appearance, and consist of minute crystals of ice. Their altitude above sea-level averages about five miles, but is frequently much greater than this. All other clouds are composed of little drops of water—not hollow vesicles of water, as was once supposed. Neither crystals nor drops actually "float" in the air. They are constantly falling with respect to the air around them, though, as the air itself often has an upward movement, the cloud particles are not always falling with reference to the earth. ”

“ Note that a cyclone is not necessarily a storm, though the one shown on this map, with its center not far from New York City, was a very violent storm, which, when this map was drawn, was sweeping up the Atlantic coast. (Popular usage applies the term "cyclone" to the tornado.) The strength of the winds in [Pg 7] a cyclone depends upon the contrast in barometric pressure between its center and its outer border. A cyclone with crowded isobars always has strong winds; when the isobars are widely spaced the winds are gentle. ”

“ This is the highest telephone line in the world, and its installation is an arduous undertaking. A permanent line is impossible, on account of the shifting of the glaciers and snowfields on which the poles must be erected.
There is also a meteorological observatory on Mont Blanc, but it is not at the summit and is not quite so high as that on Monte Rosa. The solar observatory which once stood at the very top of Mont Blanc no longer exists. The United States Signal Service (now the Weather Bureau) formerly maintained observatories on Pike's Peak (14,134 feet) and Mount Washington (6,280 feet) . ”

“ The purpose of The Mentor Association is to give its members, in an interesting and attractive way the information in various fields of knowledge which everybody wants and ought to have. The information is imparted by interesting reading matter, prepared under the direction of leading authorities, and by beautiful pictures, reproduced by the most highly perfected modern processes. ”

“ ETEOROLOGISTS are not content to limit their investigations to the stratum of air lying close to the earth's surface. Even before the demands of the aeronaut for information concerning the structure and phenomena of the atmosphere far overhead became pressing, many efforts had been made to secure such information, in view of its important bearing upon many scientific problems. ”

“ A little above the ten-mile level the air is only one-eighth as dense as at sea-level. The atmosphere extends at least 300 miles above the earth, at which height its density is computed to be only one two-millionth as great as at sea-level. ”

“ Frosts in the spring and autumn are also predicted with great success, to the immense advantage of farmers, market-gardeners, and horticulturists. The practice of smudging or heating orchards, now so widespread, is usually carried on under the advice of the Weather Bureau, which gives prompt notice to the orchardist when such precautions are in order. ”

“ TURPAIN'S THUNDERSTORM RECORDER Or ceraunograph. This is one of several instruments designed to register the natural electric waves, or "strays," which sometimes interfere seriously with the transmission of wireless telegrams. Strays are often generated by lightning discharges, near or distant, and this instrument therefore serves to give notice of an approaching thunderstorm
A blizzard is a high, cold wind, accompanied by blinding snow, which in winter sometimes blows out of the front of an advancing anticyclone, especially in our North-Central States. ”

“ In the Southern tier of States and along almost the whole of our Pacific coast snow is a rarity. The heaviest snowfall in this country probably occurs in the high Sierra Nevada of California, near the border of Nevada. In some places in these mountains more than 40 feet of snow falls in an average winter, while more than 65 feet has been recorded in extreme cases. ”