The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-02-14
WHY THE ORDINARY
THERMONET TIERS LIE
Weather Man Explains Dis.
Crepancies Between Them
and His instruments.

Everybody knows the weather man
is cross eyed.
Everybody knows that, even could
the weather man see straight, he never
could find out hot it really is in sum-
mer, how cold it really is in winter.
This is because he keeps his thermom-
eter in the refrigerator ON summer aft
ernoons and takes it into the house on
winter mornings.
Everybody knows these things.
Everybody says, quite properly, when
they see 25 below zero printed in the
paper as IS below, or SO above zero re-
ported on those funny weather maps as
81 above-everybody says then, 20,
that's the weather mans weather.
Strange that he can never report the
actual temperatures"
Nobody would deny facts so easily
proved as these facts. Nobody, that is,
except the weather man himself. But
Mr.. Oliver, Mr.. William e. Oliver, Off
cial weather observer, up on the top
floor of the Chamber Of Commerce
building, where they teach music, kim
dergartening and meteorology in happy
aggregation, pretends that he isn't con-
WINGED
thermometers are correct; that his
weather is the real weather. AS if YOU
hadn't watched your own thermometer
in front of your own bay window for
the last sixty days, and as If everybody
In the office, when you discussed the
cold spell yesterday morning, hadn't
been watching their thermometers with
| the same result, to-wit, the weather
man was always wrong.
Mr.. Oliver Talks.
Eyes" said Mr.. Oliver. my Their
| mometers are right" CWe'u let him
| talk; he's but one against 100000 and
no doubt the government hires him to
say such things.)
My thermometers are right" he
goes on, land the publics thermometers
are wrong-us ually.
You think you have poser. You
say that in the summer your thermom-
! eter always went much higher than
mine, and that 1 explained it then by
| pointing out that the heat, radiating
| from the walls and sidewalks near your
| thermometer, put the mercury up too
| far. But now your thermometer is usu-
| ally lower than mine is. You haven't
| moved 1t. The walls Of your steam
| heated Hat building are still radiating
! heat Why isn't your thermmoeter high
| er than mine now as it was in the good
| old summer time?
| We'll, this is why: Your thermom-
! eter is one of the ordinary commercial
| instruments. Perhaps it cost a dollar,
! and the drug store man guaranteed it.
| Perhaps you tested it yourself the same
afternoon with the biggest thermom-
| eter you could find outside a Sixth
street store and saw that your pur-
! chase was to be relied upon.
| Now, l don't doubt you in the least.
| Your thermometer is to be relied upon,
L imagine, in all ordinary temperatures.
! such as most thermometers are made
| Tor - temperatures, l mean, inside
| mousse, temperatures ranging from 20
| above zero to 80 above or maybe 10O
Within that distance your 81 instru-
ment and my cheap little toys would
| agree within two or three degrees.
Why 81 Thermometer Lies.
but it costs money to make an ac-
! curate thermometer tube or stem. Ev-
| cry inch of this glass is expensive, if
accurate. So the ordinary thermom-
| eter, however attractively it may be
mounted, is tested and adjusted for
household temperatures only. Above 80
degrees, or below 20 degrees, the mer-
curry in this instrument Wanders about
! TO suit itself. 1t may shoot up ten
| degrees when the temperature has
| actually risen two degrees. 1t may
| drop fifteen degrees when a scientific
| instrument would show a fall of five
degrees.
so your instrument as 1 believe
| isn't reliable, even if it were placed SO
/ as to avoid radiation from walls. side
| walks, etc.
| But my thermometer is reliable: I
! should say, my four thermometers
You didn't know, possibly, that 1 play
| meteorological quartette. Each Of
my instruments has a tube ten inches
long-the smaller tubes are not so
trustworthy, and all of the four in
struments mark the same record with
| in half of one degree in any sort of
weather. Besides. one Of the four is a
| spirit thermometer and three are mer-
| curial
TT isn't true, either, as most people
| believe, that my instruments are ex-
posed to radiation from the roof of a
steam-heated building and to the va
pors from smokestacks and steam
pipes. These instruments are twelve
feet above the roof and are placed on
| a thick wooden base to keep out posi-
| bic radiations of heat from below They
| are sixty feet from any steam exhaus :
| and 100 feet from any live chimney
If smoke or steam should blow towards
| them, the effect would be temporary
only, as the wind is constantly shift
ing.
Not Like Flesh and Blood.
Besides, they are cooped up in a
little lattice work box to keep them in
| the shade while permitting air to cir
| culate freely. Thermometers, might
say, aren't flesh and blood: they never
feel cooler because they are standing in
| a draft or warmer because they are
| Struggled against wall
See how careful am or, rather the
"a Pr 10n nj &c To fhn-
eters in situation as nearly ideal as
| possible.
How careful have you been? Did