The Alaska daily empire., 1917-02-14

l logiSt, has created addltiondl interest in the North in this branch of the United States government service and particularly SO in connection with its service to the public in the North, Recognizing this interest, The Em. pire requested Mir. Summers to pre-. pare a series of educational articles on the Weather Bureau, its develop, ment and work. The first result of that request is the article that ap- pears today. Other articles of equal interest will follow.)
 Now that the Weather Bureau has made its advent in Juneau, perhaps a short account of its history and a brief description of its work would be of interest.
 The weather is a condition of na- 1 ture to which we are subjected at all times, no matter where we may go. The gaseous envelope of the earth that We call "air." or "atmos. phere," completely surrounds us and even permeGtes the tissues of our bodies. This atmosphere possesses certain qualities such as pressure or weight, moisture or dryness, move ment in the form of winds, etc, and it is the sum of all these at any given time that constitutes what we call weather It is no wonder, then, that we are all affected by it.. either directly or indirectly and that i the weather has been a favOritc top ! ic of conversation from time imme- morlal. However very few of us ever give it more than a passing | though We think that we can not change it: that men may come and men may go, but the weather goes on forever varying of course from l day to day within certain limits, but ever and anon having It's own stern way whether we like 1t or not. and so why bother our heads about it.. But, from the earliest times there have been few persons who have , had more than a passing interest in the weather. In the period 5000 tO | 1000 B. C., the McsOpotamians had sort O. system of weather obscrva- tions. while the Chaldeans were in- terestcd in optical phenomena such as halos-thosc rings We occasion ! ally see around the sun and moon. The Greeks made observations of the weather Grd the data were eX. hibited in a kind Of peg almanac at. tached to public columns.
 Franklin and Jefferson Weather
 Experts
 Away back about the middle of the 18th century Benjamin Franklin be. gan to think and ponder over the yagaries of the weather. He believed that noting in nature occurs by chance; that all natural phenomena | are controlled by natural laws; and, with the meagre knowledge of the sciences extant at that time he be. gan carefully to observe some of the peculiarities Of the weather that pre- vailed in his home city, Philadelphia. He finally came to the conclusion that weather conditions move in gen. eral from west to east, a principle that other investigators. Thomas Jefferson among the number, soon verified
 ! Ferrel the Newton of Meteorology
 Later investigators gradually un- folded principles pertaining to the physics Of the atmosphere until fl. nalIy, in the sos of the last century, Prof. William Ferrel, a school teach CT and mathematician of Tennessee, ! promulgated the law of storms, which is to the science Of McteOrOlOgy what Newtons law of gravitation is to As. trOnomy. The invention of the tele- graph made possible the putting to practical use the findings of these scientists by collecting simultaneous weather observations at some cen ral point within a comparatively short period of time, where the data could be charted and from the charts ! forecasts could be made
 First Forecasting
 The work of forecasting was start ed by the late Professor Cleveland i Abbe in the late eos in cooperation with the Cincinnati Chamber of Com merce. It was a remarkable achieve mcut. and. together with his subse- |Qucnt investigations, won for Pro lessor Abbe the acknowledged dis tinction of being the Dean of Ameri- can Meteorology. The United States government recognized the value and 1 possibilities of the new service and ! by act of Congress incorporated it in the work of the Signal Corps of the Army In 1870 and during the next few years regular observing sta tions were established in all of the principal cities of the country and at the many frontier military posts. Thus was started a service that has grown and developed into the insti- tuition known as the Weather Bu- rpau