Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-03-25

thus enormously exaggerate some special event
TO make use of an illustration given by another,
individual severe winters, which they may
be some years apart, SEEM when they are looked
back upon from distance of several years later
to have been close together. 1t is much in the
case OF the telegraph poles along railroad track.
When we near the individual poles, they seem
fairly far apart, but when we look down the track
the poles seem to stand close together. The differ
ence in the impressions made upon youthful and
upon adult minds may account for part of this mis-
conception regarding changes of climate. To
youthful mind heavy snow-storm is memorable
thing. 1t makes deep impression, which lasts
long and which in later years when snow-stor1ns
are just as heavy to dwarf the recent storms
in comparison with the older. The same is true
regarding heavy rains or floods drouehts
Changes of residence may account Tor some of
the prevalent ideas about climate One who was
brought up child in the country where snow
drifts deeply and where roads not quickly
broken out, and who later removes to a city,
where the temperatures slightly higher, where
the houses are usually warmer and where the
snow is quickly removed from the streets, naturally
thinks that the winters milder and less snowy
than they were when he was boy Similarly,
change of residence from hill to a valley or vice
versa, or from the coast to the interior and on
may easily give impression of changing climate
Even in cases where individuals have kept record
of the thermometer readings during a long series
so high or SO low they used to be, that the
rainfall IS higher or heavier than it years
before, the chances that the location of the
thermometer or the exposure of the rain-gage has
been changed sufficiently to account for any OBJ
served differences in the readings.
The "O1d-Fashioned" Season
THE shortness of peoples memories in the matter
OF weather conditions is well illustrated by the
following fact, which has come under the writer's
observation in his district of New England
During the winter just ended, which has attracted
some attention because of it's relatively mild tenn
peratures and small snowfall people have been
saying generally that the climate has certainly
changed to warmer one and one of the Boston
newspapers recently printed symposium, to which
several meteorological experts contributed signed
articles, the subject I" Has Anything Hap
pened to the Old-fashioned New England Winter"
the general impression the part of the public
being that something certainly has happened to it
Only two years ago, in 100000, when there
frequent snow-storms when the cold severe,
and when snow lay on the ground for weeks,
the winter commonly designated as an "old-
fashioned" And at that time another Boston
newspaper requested from the writer of the present
article discussion of the question, Why Has the
Old-fashioned Winter Come Back Again." People
felt then that the climate had changed from a
1nder to severe one. Within three years,
therefore, in New England there have been two
wholly divergent views the part of the general
public. During the present mild open winter peo-
pie seem to have forgotten the winter of
100000 During the severe winter of 100000
they had forgotten preceding winters mild as