The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-02-12
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION BUREAU
FREDERIC J. HASKIN, Director,
Washington, d. c.
THE CLIMATE OVER THERE.
Washington, D. c.

This question has been asked of the
United States weather bureau by a
number of thoughtful persons, and it
is an important one. Climate is a
mighty factor in warfare. Man, like
all other animals, is adapted by his
habits of life, and by his physical
makeup-especially the color of his
skin, hair and eyes-to certain eli
matte zones, to certain amounts OF
light, heat and humidity. Take him
to a zone radically different from the
one to which he is accustomed or by
nature adapted, and he Will slcken,
sooner or later he will perish unless
removed, just as tropical animals sick
en- and perish in northern ZOOS. and
domestic animals from the temperate
zone die or degenerate when taken to
the tropics. That is the reason why
American soldiers and civilian officers
are sent to the Philippines only for a
few years, as are British soldiers and
officials to India, and why many of
these develop nervous troubles and
other diseases during their short stays.
The tropics are suited only to men
with dark skins, and who are accus-
toned to considerable degrees of heat.
This is also the reason why Indian and
other tropical troops have failed to
be of material use on the western front
in Europe. They are out of their nat
ura1 zone.
1t will be seen at once that in most
of our recent warfare the climate nas
been on the side of the enemy. In the
Philippines, in Cuba, in Puerto Rico,
forms of disease and degeneration to
which the natives were immune took
heavy-tOll of our troops. This hoStil-
ity of the tropical climate has been an
important factor in all tropical con-
quests by the white men of the tenn
perate zone.
In France our troops will not en-
counter hostile climate. On the 9TH
er hand, many of them will be going
to a climate which is more congenial
to them than the one in which they
were born, and it is probable that
many will benefit by the change, so
far as purely Genealogical influences
are concerned. For they will be go
in~ to a climate which resembles more
than any other the climate of our own
North Pacific states, such as Wash
ington and Oregon, and which is
known TO be one of the healthiest eli
mates in the world for the blonde or
Aryan man. To Americans who are
of south European or African stock,
the climate of the battle line will be
much less congenial
Ethnologists are now pretty well
agreed that the type of man known
as the dolicho-cephalic blonde, to
which most Englishmen, Scandina-
vians, Scotch, Irish, Germans, Swiss,
Dutch. natives of northern France,
and all Americans descended from
these and other blonde stocks belong,
originated in the Baltic regions In
this Baltic region the blonde man
spent the tens of thousands of years
before he became civilized. This cool.
cloudy Baltic region is therefore his
natural life zone, just as much as the
Arctic tundra is the life zone of the
musk OK. and he will fail to thrive in
any other life zone, just as the musk
OK fails to thrive when brought south.
That explains why, altho white men
nave been pushing south into the trop-
les for many centuries, hey have new
er been able to make a permanent
habitat CT the hot countries. They
have to control them by sending men
to them for few years; the dark
races still remain the only permanent
inha bitants.
1t follows that nearly the whole of
the American continent has a climate
TO some extent hostile to Americans.
1t has been suggested that this is the
reason why the old dolicho-cephalfc
blonde american stock is decreasing
In TINS country and the brunette Euro
pean stocks increasing MANY other
facts might be cited in support of 1his
theory. But the important fact for
the present discussion is that a cool
CLOUDY climate is well adapted to the
traditional American type, and to such
a climate he is going in this war.
we nave heard SO much about sum
ny france that many of us think of it
as a warm southern country As a
matter of fact, southern France is as
Tar north as Boston, and northern
France is in the latitude of southern
Canada, as Is all of Belgium But
owing to the influence of ocean cur
rents, northern France does not ex-
perience the extremes of heat and
cold that visit most of the northern
United States. That great ocean cur
rent known as the Atlantic Drift
brings the warmed waters of the Gulf
OF Mexico to the western coast of
Europe. The sea both gives off and
absorb3 heat more slowly than the
land. As a result of this, the effect of
tho Atlantic Drift is to temper both
the winters and the summers. Thus
Dunkirk, on the coast of France has
almost exactly the same climate as
Seattle Wash, on our own Pacific
coast, where the climate is also regu-
lated by ocean currents. But in
France the influence of these ocean
currents is not interrupted by great
mountain masses to the same extent
as in America, with the result that
an eQuable climate is found much
farther inland in France. Thus, altho
winter and summer are well marked
in the interior of France, the winters
are not so cold nor the summers so
hot as in most parts of the northern
half of the United States. In the in
tie ior of northern France, the average
temperature for January, the coolest
month, is few degrees above freez-
ing, which is about the same as the
average southern Missouri and central
Virginia. But in these states there is
much NOR, variation; in France the
temperatures persist close to the aver
age.
The myth of sunny France" is
completely exploded by a study OF
Chronological data. Francois much
less sunny than America. But this
is not to be altogether regretted. for
science has searchingly questioned the
popular conception that much SUM-
shine is healthfuI. 1t is believed that
the excessive sunshine of the tropics
is one of the most adverse influences
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