The Washington herald., 1911-05-21

~ to the United States, is not posi}
Various causes have been assigned from
time to time, but they are mere conjectures-s
theories only. And while the causes Of
storms are unknown, so also no one undert
stand the reason for sudden changes o1
temperature.
These phenomena are being carefully obA
served and reported, but their cause is one
Of natures profound secrets
There Is often q season Of bhzzards and 10
may therefore be Of interest to point out somd
features about the movement Of cold wavesk
which now q subject Of investigation bY
the scientific world.
The changes Of the weather, as displayed
on the weather maps which are issued from
Washington, often present curious facts. Thus
on a certain day and at certain place.
the temperature, as shown by the thermcm-
eter, was fifteen degrees below zero. In
twenty-four hours it had risen T. eight de-
grces above zero.
During that time there was no change in
the nearness of the sun to the particular To-
cality affected, and IL we are to believe the
old doctrine that the sun is fire which
warms the earth, why should such suddea
changes Of temperature have been expert.
enced at any particular place within so short
. time?
The cold waves which rush down upon N
from the north are discovered a. soon az they
reach the northwestern limits Of the United
States, and their future course is observed
and predicted. -
But what they are ID unknown to u.s. We
only know that theee Billiards start some.
where in the far North, and that their prog.
ress, when they enter upon our territory, -
either southward or eastward.
il a blizzard. while il u sweeping across
the Western prairies, meets strong south
wind, then the two currents form . fierce
and whirling storm, which travels eastward,
But when the blast from the north does not
meet a sout@ wind it forces its way down ID
the Gulf Of Mexico. y
The north and south mountain chains of
our hemisphere. with their snow-covered
peaks. create dense bank of atmosphere
which prevents storms from going westward.
move eastward. welile ocean cyclones invariai
ably move westward until they meet an area
Of high pressure, which turns them to the
northeast.
Il does not matter whether they originate
on the Atlantic coast. in the West Indiaa
Archipelago, or in the Gulf of Guinea. in
every case they move westward to the vicin-
My OF Cuba, or even as far as the coast OF
Mexico
All that we know, therefore, about either
land or ocean storms il their movements, bue
some experiments made recently in the pos'
sitilities Of producing cold will undoubtedly
suggest new theories as to the cause Of
Professor Dcwar, the English scientist, sue,
ceeded in producing such extremes of cold
e,at, at JAG degrees Fahrenheit, below xeroi
he solidified nitrogen gas into a. white cryss
talnc wax. At $50 degrees below zero hq
solidifel air into translucent body like glass;
and at 154 degrees below zero he reduced
oxygen gas to BLUSH oil. These tempera4
lures were measured with a hydrogen therx
mometer, which does not show greatei{
degree Of cold than 400 below zero.
II is currently believed that intense cold
prevails above the atmosphere That the sun
cannot heat these regions il evident froS3
possible, therefore, that the blixzards and
cold waves which we suppose are brought
from the Poles, really fall down upon tho
earth from the upper regions Of space, where
air. Some day science win unravel what ID
now q mystery. --a.-