Evening star., 1936-03-03

kidding the weather man" may be
an extinct sport in the next few years.
For this take the word of DR.. William
J. Humphreys, who probably has an
swered more tough questions about the
weather than any other man living and
who is the author of the chief American
textbook of meteorological science.
DR.. Humphreys has just retired from
the service of the United States Weather
Bureau after half century of service.
He has seen weather forecasting advance
from glorified guesswork almost to the
status of an exact science. But, DR..
Humphreys told the Cosmos Club the
other night, it is just at the threshold
of its real career. There will be more
progress of meteorology during the next
few decades, he said, than in the past
1000 years.
The veteran weather man traced the
course of meteorological history from its
obscure beginnings back in Babylon,
where the almanac originated. 1t has
continued through the ages, the most
trusted of weather guides. Even today
there are farmers who will not trust
the forecasts from Washington, but refer
with naive faith to some patent medicine
almanac to decide on the best dates Tor
planting and harvesting.
But the almanac, says DR.. Humphreys,
is on its last legs and in few more
years this venerable institution is likely
to vanish even from the remotest farm
houses. 1t was always a fake, and
usually without the slightest justifica-
ton for its wholesale and allegedly IN
fallible predictions.
DR.. Humphreys has been digging into
meteorological antiquity to find out how
the almanac makers got that way.
The whole scheme of star weather,
he finds, arose from the primeval amin
ism which attributed all weather to the
gods. The winds were their breaths.
The tempests were their tantrums.
When a god and his divine spouse were
having a spat and playfully hurting
thunderbolts at each other 1t was bad
news for primitive man.
Then the wandering planets were
named after the gods. The animism
became sophisticated. Men no longer
believed that the inebriate snoring OF
Jupiter constituted a hurricane. They
had reached the point where they didn't
even believe in Jupiter. Nonetheless,
down the ages had come the intimate
association of Jupiter with hurricanes
and it could not be gotten out OF mems
minds. BY simple psychological process
the association was transferred from the
discarded god to the planet which had
been named for him. Consequently
when Jupiter was in the ascendancy in
the heavens men expected hurricanes
and the almanac makers so predicted.
Then came the Christianization of
Europe and the whole structure of Greek
mythology was swept away. Attributes
hitherto assigned to the gods were now
fastened on the saints. Sometimes the
two actually were identified. Thus
arose the Saints day" weather, which
more or less persists to the present.
Here another factor entered the pic
ture. The whole year became punctu-
ated with saints days. Folks measured
time not from week to week or month to
month, but, as children often do now,
from saint day to saint day. These
often were holidays. They were breaks
In the deadly monotony OF life.
If one of these days was rainy 1t was
fixed in the memory. Perhaps 1t would
be rainy again the next year and, purely
by coincidence, again the next year.
Consequently, since 1t was matter OF
such Importance, that particular saint
became associated in mems minds with
rain and rainy" legends grew up about
him. Rain came to be expected on the
day devoted to him, when presumably
his influence was at its height.
So the almanac L,akers predicted rain
year after year on the day of this par
ticular saint. Sometimes they were right.
When they were their btrons remem-
hared Il. When thar sdicttons went