Evening star., 1913-03-02

give us true record Thermometric
records should be taken in the sunshine
in the summer and I'm the shade in the
winter, and at earth level. TO take a
record OF the thermometer in the shade
i'm the summer is futile; one might as
well put the thermometer in a refriger-
ator: to take the mercury in the sun in
the winter is as valueless. The highest
and lowest records by days, weeks.
months and years are what are needed.
To explain: The normal rainfall for
any given month is seven inches. Twen-
ty-nine days of that months no rain falls !:
on the last day deluge comes, with
hurricane wind, as has happened Crops
are beaten fiat and great damage is done,
but the average amount of rainfall for
that month is recorded, to the later con-
fusion of any one seeking d true record.
Weather in Streaks.
One of the remarkable features of the
curious weather of the past two summers
and winters is that the variable zones
seem to run north and south instead of
east and west. This winter west of the
Rockies has been cold, with heavy snow
on the eastern slope Of the Rockies it
has been unusually mild; a belt east of
that has shown severe cold and little
snow with heavy ice conditions on the
great lakes. From the great lakes to
the Atlantic seabOard the winter has
been extraordinarily mild; the north At
lantic has been abnormally rough and
storm swept: northwest Europe has had
la mild winter. with blooming flowers.
while southeast Europe has had severe
winter. 1t would be more accurate to
say that the belts or zones of variant
weather run southwesterly to northeast
erly.
All this is indicative of an abnormal
state of things in the atmosphere Of
the earth. That extreme variation in
temperature observed last summer in
the northern hemisphere was fore
shadowed by the summer weather in the
antarctic is shown by the conditions re-
ported by the Amundsen and Scott
parties. Amundsen had favorable
weather, while Scott only few days
behind him. was overwhelmed with
fierce billiards. and high winds.
Earthquake in Appalachians.
I look for severe earthquake along
the Appalachian range before the end
of this summer. 1t may even come this
spring. Tremors involving the coastal
plain from South Carolina to Maine have
already been felt since the first of this
seismic symptoms. Owing to the ap-
pearance of a tremor at Atlantic City,
hitherto immune for many years, 1t
seems as If the seismic adjustment will
De along tn6 COntlHeHtdI ocean Smell
and therefore at sea rather than along
the line of the mountain range. All the
ground from Cape Ann. in Massa-
chusetts, to Florida is very new, geo.
logically and were it not for the fact
that the ancient rock ribs of earth in
Maine were also shaken / would feel
sure that the expected quake would
spend it's force on the coastal shelf, but
the Maine quake, and it was sharp
one opening ground fiSsures, brings an
other factor into consideration. There
is q very sensitive section in the Mis-
sissippi valley which was severely
shaken by a heavy quake in 1911. when
conditions were much as they are now.
and the seismic adjustment may fall
there instead of on the Atlantic coast, on
the principle that a rigidly fixed metal
bar containing a flaw near one end
will fracture at it's weak point, al
though the blow is delivered on another
part
1t is now nearly three years since l
first made public through The Star the
theory that the light and heat derived
from the sun by the earth are the result
of the transformation of invisible and
cold solar energy which is transformed
into light and heat by the mechanical re-
sistance offered to it's passage by the at
mosphere of the earth: in other words,
that sunlight and heat do not exist as
such outside of the atmosphere of the
earth. but are changed from cold solar
energy to such by mechanical resistance.