Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1906-01-25
The Observer.

| may lOTSCG our OWL poverty OF tndG VI
ourneighbor, we can never wholly get
away from the fact and thought of the
weather. AS the children of Mother
| Nature, we are supremely dependent
upon her varying smiles and frowns; we
climb upon her knee for n caress when
her aspect is mild, and when she as.
sumes a forbidding mein we stink into
| our corners until her tyranny is over
past. Like the story of love, the
weather is always old and ever new.
| There is nothing in it but what already
| has been, though that is chiefly sur
| prises.
A philosophic septuagenarian re
marked to the Observer, as they stood
by an open door last Sunday enjoying
| the sunlit warmth: "Our fathers have
no dought seen the like before our
day" The Observer is a generatson
short of being a septuagenarian, but
even he can recall a number of mild
winters, particularly those of 1878,
1SS9-90, and 1886 In Christmas
week of 1889 dandelions were in bloom
in Pennsylvania, and buds sprouted in
the parks of Allegheny in January.
AS rule Gf anything so uncertain
as the weather can be said to have
rules), mild winters, or severe winters
An old inhabitant recalled the fact to
the Observer the other day that the
winter of 1867 was also mild, and per-
haps some of the younger inhabitants
| may remember that the winter of 1867
was not a severe one. What purpose
| Nature has in sorting out her seasons
| in this fashion, the Observer leaves it
! to the weather men to explain. What
ever the true explanation may be,
| there are always those who are ready
| to conclude that the climate is under
| going a permanent change. They be
I gin to talk about the good old-fashion-
/ ed winters which their infancy knew;
and come of them advance theories
! about the influence of the Gulf Stream
or sun spots, or terrestrial magnets
or internal heat of the earth, or some
! thing else that cannot instantly prove
an alibi. In her own time, Nature
| confound5 these speculations by bring
| ing in a succession of severe winters,
with penetrating frost and snow in
plenty. The three or four winters
preceding this were such that many a
small boy now in school will in years
to come tell his grandchildren that
| there has never been any skating or
coasting worthy the name since he
1
speculate concerning the causes of
permanent change i'll the climate from
colder to warmer, are equally ready
when the winters are cold to claim that
the climate is gradually becoming
more frigid, and to find plausible eX-
plantations for the transformation in
theories about sun spots, failure of
solar heat, progressive cooling of the
earth, tilting of the polar axis of the
earth, etc.
But the wisest meteorologists tell us
that there is no perceptible change in
| the climate, at least within the period
of a lifetime. A geological period
may witness a considerable climatic
change, but it would take the most
! delicate micrOmeteT to measure the
fraction of change that belongs TO a
year or even life time. The changes
of which we are aware are simply
pulsatiOns in the movement of the
weather machine, and may be expected
with the certainty, though not quitewith
regularity, of the seasons themselves.
The variations are all part OF the play of
the machine; they represent no change
in its structure. Our fathers have
seen the seasons grow from mild to
severe and from severe back to mild;
our children and children's children
will no doubt witness the same.
The Observer is no weather prophet,
nor the son of a weather prophet, but
there are one or two weather signs
that he ties TO. The ring around the
, moon is usually the forerunner of a
storm. One may notice, too, if he will
take the pains to do so that the
weather has a curious habit of repeat
, ing itself in weekly cycles. For in.
stance, there is a succession of rainy
Sundays; then the weather gear slips a
cog, and the weekly downpour is
shifted to Monday, and in due course
to the other days of the week. In the
summer of 1902 it rained in Emporium
on fourteen successive Sundays.
, These weekly weather cycles are per
haps due to the changing quarters of
the moon; but, whatever the cause
the weekly weather cycle SENS to be q
: general fact.
If we shall have another downpour
of rain, or perhaps a fall of snow, next
Monday or Tuesday, no one need be
surprised; nor greatly surprised if il
does not come.