The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1913-06-22
TRIED ON SMALL SCALE
seventy.five Percent Of Prosnostlca-
tIons Are Correct Now, Against
Sixty Percent
Before.
TBy William Philip simms, Paris cor

respondent of the United Press.
PARIS, June 21-President Wood
row Wilson will soon have no need
for his razor-strap weatherforeca coast
er and the American farmer won't be
forced to count the rings around the
moon to know how many days it'll be
before 1t rains The French Academy
of Sciences has come to their rescue
and Is mapping out new scheme for
foretelling weather conditions for the
entire world.
Admittedly the new science still
has its faults, but day by day these
are undergoing correction, and the
old fashioned methods are being revo-
lutionized
The plan is to criss-cross the entire
| earth with wireless telegraph vibra-
tons, and by means of these, simul-
taneously to gather meteorological In
4 formation in every cline, on sea as
we'll as on land Earthquakes, vol
canic activities, atmospheric pheno-
mena of all sorts are to be included
In the reports from which the fore
casts are to be made.
i Not only will it be possible to know
4 beforehand the coming Of wet days,
droughts, storms, earthquakes, and
! the like. but floods, OF the kind which
4 did so much damage in Dayton and
other middle western cities, may be
foretold and guarded against,
The meteorological bureau here Is
4 now giving weather bulletins to air
men and the latter have come to rely
absolutely upon their accuracy. This
was impossible until a few months
ago Barometric high and low
areas move from west to east and the
Atlantic ocean has proved stumb-
ling block for all French weather
, men. Not knowing conditions at sea
they have been hard put to predict,
with any degree of certainty, Just
what would happen until 1t had either
: happened already or was about to.
Wireless has changed all that, or
, rather wireless and the other helps
which wireless brought along with it.
In the past the weather bureaus eff
cheney was about 60 correct predic-
lions in hundred 1t is now Is per-
{ cent,
; When Rene Rumpelmayer broke the
: worlds record for distance covered IN
a balloon, he got his information from
y the weather bureau. The Eiffel Tow
err, sweeping the seas night and day
: with it's powerful wireless, constantly
: in touch with liners racing across the
y ocean, brought the information to
the meteorological station here by
means of which 1t was figured that q
wind from the west would blow fol
u such and such length OF time. Then
. Rumpelmayer assembled. The rest
y was largely a matter of endurance.
= Conditions in Oregon, Washington
u and California are much the same as
. for France. The Pacific is the trou
= ble-fete of the slope weather-dopers
Y but as soon as the French scheme ha!
" been perfected and generalised cap
te tains of ships far out at sea will 81
d telling the farmers when to take II
their crops and when they may safel.
~ count on sunshine.
The academy admits that certain
amount of scepticism on the part 0
the public as to the efficiency Of fore
= casts, has been excusable. for the oil
Id school weatherman was somethinl
OF like the theory-ridden doctor to whom
n. patient applied for an estimate
in how long he had to live. The averag
he man lived to be &c. the theorist ar
he swered, "and since you admit that 70
Ia are 49, you must have been dead fou
ne years already
at Scientists here say that that day !
.g. over, or nearly SO, and the farmer an
le. the aviator may soon be justified !
-o- pinning their faith to their dali
he weather bulletins.
Ill
lal Rumors of war hath their victorie
of no less renowned than the real thini