The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1886-01-07
WEATHER SIGNS.
Natures Means of Indicating the Coming
of Storm.

prevent. 1t is a sound which tries the
nerves already sinking rs the electric
stimulus is withdrawn from the air. The
low spirits we are unable to account for
are often caused by the suspension of the
;oracing. positive electric current during
change OF weather, too slight, per-
haps, for us 70 notice. This sinking of
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
stitions in the world, for before the time
OF Virgil and Theocritus, when to Greek
and Erurian an eclipse was the frown
of an offended deity and comet was a
fiery messenger of wrath, the sigh of the
wind was full of unntterable 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 a legend of demons
of the air and witches shrieking discord
and horror, as if
The cloudy air was filed round about
With bowling cries and woful, waiting plants.
Old-eountry 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 and wailing is only the wind
forcing itself through a 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 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, a
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 heathen Saxon name
of Bucca, which foretold tempest and
| woe. You hear the voice now, ominous
as of yore, but you know that it is the
noise of a 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 befere 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 east ward
carry the roar of storms which are
sweeping midocean hundreds of leagues
away, not a blast of which may ever
yex the shore. 1t is wonderful what
carriers of sound and motion the great
empty spaces of the ocean are. Before
a gale is felt in the British isles heavy
swell sets the lightship swinging at the
station OF the Kish and Cookie Cat.
| whilc 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
i 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 eve to pierce its dells
and woody paths in singular clearness,
we know it is the last of our good
NtutiltE 1tI aH HIlt. now Is lnISE y
| 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 n 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 a retracting quality which brings
| distances near, ike the glasses of a tele-
scope How does it gain this quality at
one time and not at another? 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 degree. One finds
the same lense-like 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
iect to the same tidal Influences.
| Farther he declares that "changes of
| the YES ther are associated with various
aspects 4 the MOON" Mr.. Park Harri-
son, oie of the closest observers of
modern times, after studying mass of
observations, concludes that there is Il
tendency in the moon to warm the
| earth at her first quarter and cool it at
the third, slightly but perceptibly. Mr.
Glaisher, the celebrated meteorologist,
finds that there are more north winds
in one-haif OF the moons period and
| more south winds in the other-causes
quite sufficient to affect such susceptible
Things as the germs of seed.
Bat leaving tie slight additional heat
given by the moon out of the question,
research brings a new and serious phase
of the moons influence before u.s. The
suns heat, which pours upon her for a
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 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 heat of the sun for 265
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 difftlsed
throughout aature, Guickening the seed
in the ground, the leaf iii its sheaf, the
blood within our veins, the tissues which
overlap our frame. Science detects
tide of nervous electric force at its fullest
IL n - L