Palisadian., 1925-01-30
ANDREW JACKSON
De Voc DEAD
Continued from page 1

seer who could give the United States
Weather Bureau cards and spades,
and beat them out on forecasts. This
was one of his constant boasts. So,
as our United States Weather Bureau
reports are built daily upon knowl-
edge of the condition of the barome-
ter, the thermometer, the direction
and force of the wind from actual OBJ
servations made twice a day in hun
dreds of places all over the United
States, and throughout the Caribbean
Sea, | never could see DeVoe except
as man with vivid imagination in
deed to attempt all he did
| have undertaken to analyZe some
of his theories, but every one looked
foolish. | have been a close student
of meteorology since boy in small
Georgia town where | was equipped
with a regular set of instruments and
made two daily observations for the
Smithsonian Institute in Washington
before the Weather Bureau was estab-
lished. These were mailed to Wash
ington daily for monthly summaries.
Yet | know nothing whatever of the
ultimate cause of weather nor does
any man. The moonslant theory of
DeVoe was to my mind ridiculous
enough but his cloud burst ideas were
almost comical A cloud-burst, he
said, was made through lake of pure
water floating in the skies on top of a
cloud When a wind came along and
tipped over the cloud the water
poured over the edge and we had the
cloud-burst! And there were people
who believed this, too. DeVoe would
from time to time issue challenges to
astronomers, United States forecast
ers and other men of science with
whom he agreed to discuss his theo
ries Some of these meetings actually
took place and caused great deal of
merriment. DeVoe was just a char
acter, that's all, and he capitalized
his own vagueness into meaning it
could never have had.
DeVoe once told me he could as
easily tell what the weather was,
when the battles of Waterloo or Bun
ker Hill were fought, as he could tell
what it would be on day hundred
! years hence. If any one questioned
! these statements he stood them down
that he could do it.
OF Professor DeVoe the Hacken-
sack Record had an extended sketch
on Monday last. Among other things
| it said:
Strange as it may seem, his last
important prediction, made about two
weeks ago, was that the weather
would be so cloudy and misty for the
eclipse on Saturday that the millions
in the metropolitan area would not see
it. Though this was the most stupen-
dous happening in his career Mr.. De-
Voc was too i'll to see the eclipse
which, despite his forecast, was a
wonderful success, so far as weather
conditions were concerned.
Professor DeVoe was quite active
as lecturer for several years. and
no matter whether his Judgment was
right or wrong he could give most
interesting and entertaining tlak. He
took one lecturer to task for declaring
that rainbows prevailed long before
the flood of Noah's time.
The local foreeaster insisted there
never was a rainfall before this food;
that there was a continuous even tenn
perature and a certain moisture that
made men grow to be giants and pro-
vided wonderful crops; that as there
was no rain there could be no rain
bows, and he proceeded to deliver
series of lectures along those lines.
Washington Skeptical
Mr. DeVoe on many occasions tried
to make the government weather
officials at Washington believe that he
had discovered the secret for the
weather and with the facilities to
work with that the weather bureau
men had he could give perfect fore
casts for year or two in advance at
any time. But the Washington Of
ficials never could see it, and DeVoe