The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1885-12-31
WEATHER SIGNS.
Natures Means OF Indicating the comine
of \ Storm

spirits unconsciously leads sensitive peo-
| pie to regard the cry of the wind as a
sort of banshee warning of disaster and
wreck. This is one of the oldest super
sdtions in the world, for before the time
OF Virgil and Theocritus, when to Greek
and Euurian an eclipse was the frown
OF an offended deity and comet was a
nery messenger of wrath, the sigh of the
wind was full of unutterable portents.
In olden days, when window frames
were not as close as ours and chimney
crannies offered pipe for any tune the
| wind chose to play upon it, imaginative
cotters wove many legend of demons
of the air and witches shrieking discord
| and horror, as if
| The cloudy air was filled round about
with hoWl1ng cries and woful, Wailing plants.
Old-country tradition is full of such
tales, and we are all primitive enough
to feel touch of creeping dread at the
| eldrich voices of the wind. forgetful that
the clamor ard wailing is only the wind
forcing itself through creyice too small
for it.
The world is full of superstitions which
have arisen as naturally as the childish
dread of the wailing of the wind. But
| you must be sure that these well-worn
ideas have neither meaning nor worth
before you throw them away. A super
| stition is not always a thing to be
| laughed at, truth which the latest re-
search of science strikingly illustrates.
In places on the west coast of Eng
land, on the calmest, quietest of DAYS, q
strange, hollow moan is heard from a
distance at sea, although the waves lie
sleeping at ones feet Fifty years ago
the coast folk believed it the voice of a
| spirit, by the old heather Saxon name
| <NT \
woe. You hear the voice now, ominous
as of yore, but you know that it is the
noise of storm SO far off on the Atlantic
that its swell has not even reached
| shore. Sound travels so much faster
than currents of air that the tempest
reaches the ear long before the first
| ripple of wind touches the cheek. Sound
| in air travels about thirteen miles a
minute; in water four times as fast, out
| stripping the speed of any tornado
known. The shore at these places
| gathers the sound as in the drum of the
ear, and currents striking eastward
carry the roar of storms which are
sweeping midocean hundreds of leagues
away, not a blast of which may ever
vex the shore. 1t is wonderful what
carriers of sound and motion the great
empty spaces of the ocean are. Before
gale is felt in the British isles heavy
swell sets the ightship swinging at the
station of the Kish and Cookie Cat,
while at Valentia the surf rises twenty
| four hours before the storm reaches that
projecting point In the bay of Mon
| terey, California, the pillows come tear
ing in from the Pacific while the day is
perfectly calm. A cyclone off days at
sea has sent these surges to tell the
shore of its work.
When distant hills look clear, sailors
forbode storm. When instead of its
usual haze, Blue hill, as seen from Ded-
ham, invites the eye to pierce its dells
we know it is the last of our good
weather for awhile. How is thisP A
great German observer says the moisture
in the air washes its dust and impurities
away, leaving this beautiful clearness.
But this reason fails to be satisfactory.
Why isn't it as clear after rain as well
as before it, when we know the woods
fold their bluest mist about them, as If
to keep their recesses fresh? prefer
the theory that the air before storm
has refraoting quality which brings
distances near, like the glasses of tefe-
scope. How does it gain this quality at
one time and not at anotherp Perhaps
by the different arrangement of its mole
cules by the alteration of the electric
current so that various layers of the air
act like lenses in q degree. One finds
the same lense-ike quality in the air of
Arizona plains when mirage is visible,
and on the northwest prairies, when at
times it is like looking through great
prism, and the slopes are outlined with
purple and laid with roseate tinges of
enchanting harmony.
You have heard of the old signs and
sayings about the right time of the moon
for sowing seeds and expecting rain at
such quarter, and you have laughed
at the idea that the moon had anything
to do with the affairs of the earth beyond
giving light like a big lantern. ''In
fact, " writes one English scientist, 1.-THE
influence of the moon on the weather is
as mythical as its influence over human
Life" Presently the same writer speaks
OF ''the powerful agency of the moon in
causing tides of ocean and of air, sub
ject to the same tidal influences"
Farther he declares that changes of
the weather are associated with various
aspects of the moon" Mr. Park Harri-
son, one of the closest observers of
modern times, after studying mass of
observations, concludes that there is q
tendency in the moon to warm the
the third, slightly but percepibly. Mr..
Glaisher, the celebrated meteorologist,
| finds that there are more north winds
in one-half of the moons period and
more south winds in the other-causes
quite sufficient to affect such susceptible
things Is the germs of seed.
But leaving the slight additional heat
| given by the moon out of the question,
research brings new and serious phase
of the moons influence before us. The
moon is radiator and reflector of the
suns heat, which pours upon her for q
period fourteen times the length of our
| day, part of which flows into space and
| part comes to earth. In this period of
isolation the moon receives not only
heat, but q portion of that intense vital
and electric force of which the sun is
| the center and source. At her third
| quarter the moon has been exposed to
| the uninterrupted heatof the sun for PCS
hours, absorbing quantities of vital heat
| and electricity as well. Why may not
it be also reflector and radiator of this
electric energy, which we find difused
throughout nature, quickening the seed
| in the ground, the leaf in its sheaf, the
| blood within our veins, the tissues which
overlap our frame. Science detects q
tide of nervous electric force at its fullest
about 10 o'clock in the forenoon, and
from to 4 in the afternoon, when
human strength and life are at their
best, In the hours opposite which they
are at their lowest, when the sick feel
feeblest, and when the dying find re-
lease. The hours Of its ebb and flow
are as well known as the tide of ocean,
and beyond . doubt such a current
exists in lower forms of organic life.
All things point to the sun as the royal
source, the~moon as the dispenser and
regulator, of this magnetic life. Adj
miral Fitzroy, founder of the weather
service Of Great Britain, fairest and most
exact of observers, writes in his weather
book that all the phenomena agrees with
the idea of such an electric influence on
the part Of the moon, and farther that
il explains all unreconciled facts in
meteoroloy. This being true, 1t re-
! deems from sbsurdity the dependence OF
| mankind for centuries on the aspects OF
| the moon for signs of weather, for times
of sowing and reaping. for weaving OF
children and young animals, IN short
sensitive to Influences we duly feel and
distantly perceive When all sclentlhc
men agree that, whatever the reason.
. certain changes Of the weather and GER
tain changes Of the moon happen to
I Oefher. we have not far to look for g
= code Of weather signals available BY
: land or sea- The old superstition wal
: that the moon caused the cHalge o.
E weather.. in which lies the mistake. JUS
8 as II we believed that the eautionary
2 sio-naIs of the weather bureau caused
s / storms. That the moons changes agreS
80 a. ..l,.y.r,.. ~ xuaafl,or az with fhG