CLEARING AN INNOCENT MAN
The saving of Jed Tighe's crop did more to establish the reputation of
the Mississippi League of the Weather than anything which the boys had
done since the League was organized. Although Jed Tighe was stern by
nature, he was thoroughly fair. He had no hesitation in placing the
credit where it belonged, and the boys soon found that they had no
stronger ally than the hard-spoken old farmer.
Even his friendship, however, did not prepare the boys for the farmer's
sudden arrival at their club-house, on a Saturday afternoon, two weeks
later. He drove up in a ramshackle old buggy, driving two of the finest
horses in the county. Skinflint though he was, he loved horses. He came
into the club-house and eyed the boys standing around the table.
"I'm going to ship some potatoes to Chicago," he said abruptly, without
any preface. "I want to know whether they'll be safe from freezing on
the way."
There was a moment's dead silence. The boys had not bargained for such a
point-blank demand for help, and it took them off their feet. One looked
at the other and several shuffled uncomfortably. The Forecaster watched
the lads keenly, interested to see how they would face the issue. Ross
spoke first.
"Well, Mr. Tighe," he said hesitatingly, "we haven't done any figuring
on the weather outside this neighborhood, as yet."
This cautious attitude did not appeal to Fred, who always wanted to
plunge in head first.
"Sure we can, Ross!" he declared.
The president of the League looked inquiringly at his mainstay, the
silent Bob, and, in answer to his unspoken question, the other nodded.
"We could try it, of course, if you wanted us to," agreed Ross.
"Ain't I asking you to?" said their visitor, sharply.
"But suppose we don't get it just right?" Ross queried.
"That's the chance I'm taking," the farmer replied. "But there's no
doubt that you know a lot more about it than I do, and your guess is
likely to be nearer than mine. Those potatoes have just got to go to
Chicago some time next week, anyway."
"It's a new stunt for the League," said Ross again, hesitating, but the
editor-in-chief broke in impatiently.
"We might as well tell what we know," he said. "We do know that there's
a cold wave on the way."
"There is? How cold?" the farmer asked, with a sudden quickening of
interest.
"Cold enough to freeze potatoes, at any rate," assured Fred. "I was
looking at the Weather Map only about an hour ago. Oh, it's going to be
cold, all right."
"How do you know?" Jed Tighe demanded. "If I'm goin' to act on what you
boys say, I'd like to know how you find out."
"I've been wondering," put in Anton thoughtfully, "if it wouldn't be a
good idea to have Mr. Tighe go over the map with us. He might be
interested in figuring it out, and then if we didn't hit it just right,
he'd know we'd done our best, anyway."
"Well," rejoined the farmer grimly, "if I've got to hand you over some
of my crop this fall, I might as well find out what sort of project I'm
supporting. I really would like to see how you find out. You boys
certainly made good on that frost business the other night."
From a hook over the compositor's "case," Fred reached down a sheaf of
the Daily Weather Reports, and laid those for the last three days on the
table in front of Anton. The Forecaster stood by to help the crippled
lad and to correct him if he made any mistakes in his explanations.
"All our weather in the United States," the boy began, explanatorily,
"comes from the west."
"Why?" snapped back Jed Tighe.
The Forecaster smiled. He realized that the question went to the very
root of weather knowledge. The query was a poser to Anton. He stammered.
"I know it does," he said, "but just why, I--I--"
"You'll have to begin at the beginning, Anton," put in the Forecaster
quietly. "If Mr. Tighe really wants to know, you can't take anything for
granted. Explain to him the circulation of the atmosphere, just the way
I taught it to you during the winter."
The crippled lad's face brightened. He knew, now, how to proceed.
"All changes of weather, Mr. Tighe," he said, "happen because of the
winds, and all the changes of winds are due to the differences in heat
at various parts of the globe, especially at the equator, where it is
always hot, and at the poles, where it is cold nearly all the year
round."
"You mean to say that the weather at the North Pole and at the equator
has anything to do with our weather here?"
"Everything," Anton answered, nodding his head. "The heat of the sun is
what causes weather changes, because winds are due to the heating of the
air, and the sun is the only thing that heats the air. At the equator,
where the sun shines nearly overhead all the year round, the air gets to
be very hot. Hot air expands, and as it gets bigger, it displaces the
cold air above it. Gravity pulls down the colder air on both sides of
this belt of rising hot air, and the down-flowing cold air on both sides
blows in toward the equator under the warm air, where the heat of the
sun warms it again, and, in turn, it rises. This is going on all the
time and is one of the chief things that starts the winds blowing."
"But winds don't always blow the same way," said the farmer; "you talk
as if they did."
"Some of them do," Anton replied. "There are lots of places where the
winds hardly change, at all, but always blow in the same direction. You
read of sailing ships taking the 'trade winds' when coming from Europe
to America. Those are all easterly winds and blow towards the American
coasts all the year round."
"I don't see how they can," the other objected.
"They do, Mr. Tighe," the Forecaster interrupted, endorsing Anton's
statements; "the trade winds are the downflowing currents of cold air
that Anton spoke of, which come down at either side of the equatorial
belt to replace the warm air which is rising. The trade winds, however,
form only a narrow belt and blow only near the surface of the earth.
Above them, you can see the lighter clouds blowing eastward with a
westerly wind, so that, quite often, in the trade winds, you can look
overhead and see two layers of clouds driving in opposite directions."
"You mean to say that there are different layers of wind?" queried the
farmer.
"Sure," put in Ralph, the cloud expert, "I've got photographs that show
that up clearly. You've seen clouds going at different rates, haven't
you, Mr. Tighe, some fast and some slowly?"
The other nodded and turned to the Forecaster, who continued.
"There are always several layers of wind, and, except above the
equatorial belt," he said, "the direction of the upper air winds is
generally towards the east."
"How can you tell that?"
"By the clouds, or by kites and balloons. But we don't even need to do
this, because there are a few places that rise above the lower layers of
the trade winds. Thus, the Peak of Teneriffe, which is in the trade-wind
belt, has a continuous easterly wind on its lower slopes and a
continuous westerly wind right at the summit.
"This gives three belts of weather in the tropical and sub-tropical
zones. The first of these is a light up-flowing east wind on or near the
equator--it shifts a little to the north or south with the change of the
seasons; a belt of heavy rains and calm, the rains being due to the
warm, moist, uprising air cooling by expansion so that the moisture is
condensed--this region is known to sailors as the 'doldrums' and many a
sailing-vessel has been held for weeks there, without enough wind to
carry her the few miles necessary to get into the next belt of winds;
outside this, come the downflowing easterly currents, known as the trade
winds, which form a belt between the tropics and the temperate zones.
Beyond this--to the north and south of the tropical zones--come the
prevailing belts of strong west winds, which stretch almost to the
Poles.
"The United States is in this west-wind zone and the strength and
regularity of the eastward movement of the weather is because both the
winds of the surface and of the upper air blow in the same direction.
Naturally, the same conditions are repeated on the other side of the
equator. In the southern hemisphere the land masses are not so large and
the regularity of the winds is less disturbed. There, the west winds are
so strong that certain latitudes are known as the 'roaring forties.'
These 'forties' correspond in latitude to the northern third of the
United States. Chicago and New York are both in the 'roaring forties' of
the northern hemisphere."
"The way you tell it, it sounds all right," the farmer objected, "but
from my experience, winds blow from all over the place."
"Locally, perhaps, they seem to," the weather expert responded, "but if
you watched them closely, you'd find that about seventy per cent of the
winds come from a westerly direction."
"They do here, for a fact," put in Tom, who, as official wind-measurer
of the League, had been following the explanation with the keenest
attention. "I've noticed that in my kite-flying. The winds are from the
southwest or from the northwest nearly all the time."
"You mean both in summer and winter?"
"Yes," answered Tom, "they're more from the northwest in winter, I
think, but they're generally westerly."
"If the winds are due to the position of the equator and the poles," the
old farmer said shrewdly, "I don't see why summer and winter ought to
make any difference."
"That," said the Forecaster, "is due to an entirely different set of
conditions. It's due to the difference in radiation. There's much
greater change in temperature over the land than over the sea. Take an
island like Bermuda, for example. From the hottest day in summer to the
coldest day in winter there isn't a change of more than forty degrees,
because Bermuda is surrounded by water and is near warm ocean currents.
In Arizona, on the other hand, there's a change of as much as fifty
degrees of temperature in a single day. That is because land absorbs
heat quickly and lets it go equally quickly. The interior of a continent
in summer time heats and expands the air in the same way that the air is
heated over the equator, and, in the same manner, sets in motion another
system of winds, for cold air comes rushing down from all sides and
forces up the rising warm air.
"Take Asia, for example, where the continental mass is large and the
plateaus high. The interior becomes so hot that the air is sent up like
the draught in a big chimney, and cool winds from the sea blow toward
the interior from all sides in the summer time, and away from it, to all
sides, in the winter time. That's what causes the famous Indian
monsoons, which blow steadily to the north-east for the six months of
summer and just as steadily to the south-west for the six months of
winter. The native boats, there, are built on purpose for the monsoon,
so that they can only sail with a fair wind and they make one round trip
a year, going south with the monsoon in winter and returning with the
summer monsoon."
The old farmer scratched his head.
"There's more to this than I thought," he said; "I always supposed that
winds just happened."
"No, indeed," the Forecaster answered, "every place in the world has its
own system of winds, though in some parts there are so many variations
that it isn't always easy to distinguish between the regular and the
irregular currents. In the United States the surface winds are very
irregular, for we live in one of the stormiest regions of the entire
world. Still, that doesn't alter the general rule that all our weather
comes from the west."
"And yet," said the farmer, in a puzzled manner, "I don't see why it
comes from the west."
"I think I can explain it to you," the weather expert replied. "You know
that when water is running down a hole at the bottom of a basin, if it
is in motion it doesn't go down straight but with a circular movement,
finally making a whirlpool?"
"Of course," the farmer said.
"So does air," the Forecaster rejoined. "There is something the same
sort of a whirl at the poles. The prevailing westerly winds of the
United States are due to this circumpolar whirl, though modified and
altered by the changes of the seasons, the differences of heat between
day and night, the radiation from the land, the irregularity of the
coastline, the currents of the ocean and a thousand other factors. Each
of these the Weather Man has to study when he makes a forecast, but, in
the United States, his work is aided by the fact that weather always
travels eastward and that the storm follows regular tracks, sharply
outlined, like Indian trails across the country."
"Roads in the air?" queried Fred.
"Yes, my boy," the Forecaster answered, "regular roads in the air. There
used to be an old saying: 'American weather is made at Medicine Hat.' In
a sense this was true, for about sixty per cent of the storm
areas--'lows' or region of low barometric pressure--come from the
Canadian Northwest. The St. Lawrence Valley is the outlet for our
storms. You know the saying about the St. Lawrence, don't you?"
"No, tell us, Mr. Levin," begged Fred, always eager for some weather
saying which he could put into the _Review_.
"Up there," the Forecaster rejoined, "they say that when a stranger
complains about the weather, a native will reply, 'Don't mind this,
we'll have another sample along in about five minutes.' And, sure
enough, they do. The St. Lawrence Valley is a magnet for weather changes
and has, perhaps, more storms than any other valley in the world."
"You spoke of the 'roads in the air,' sir," put in Ross, "how many are
there?"
"Five regular trails," the Forecaster answered. "The northernmost one
begins at the Canadian Northwest, runs along the International Boundary,
crosses the Lake region and disappears up the St. Lawrence Valley. The
second starts at the same point in the Canadian Northwest, travels
southeast to the lower Mississippi Valley--a little north of where we
are now, boys--curves up to the Ohio Valley and also escapes by the St.
Lawrence route.
"A third storm track strikes into the Pacific Coast a little north of
San Francisco and runs east and a little south until it joins the Ohio
Valley and St. Lawrence track. A fourth develops in the southwestern
states and runs along Texas and the gulf states to the Florida coast,
where it curves northward along the Atlantic coast, though a few storms
take a sharp turn in the Mississippi Valley and go Ohiowards. The fifth
storm track is that of the West Indian hurricanes, which whirl around
the West Indies and enter the United States south of Cape Hatteras or
from the Gulf of Mexico and pass north or northeastward. A few of these
hurricanes--like the famous Galveston type--sweep westwards a long way
before the northward movement sets in. This type also goes to the St.
Lawrence Valley.
"These five tracks are clearly marked, but as such areas are a thousand
miles across, it follows that the country for five hundred miles on
either side of the lines has its weather governed by them. Knowing these
tracks is of great importance in forecasting weather, because, while you
cannot always tell exactly what a storm is going to do, you definitely
know some of the things that it will never do."
"What sort of things, sir?" asked Fred.
"Well, my boy," the Forecaster answered, "if there's an area of low
pressure in Dakota, we know that it won't strike California; if there's
one in New York, we know that Maryland is safe. A storm will never go
down the Mississippi, nor up the St. Lawrence, but will always travel up
the Mississippi and down the St. Lawrence."
"There does seem to be something regular about it," the farmer remarked,
his interest growing, as the Forecaster took his pencil and sketched
out, across the map of the United States, the five great storm tracks.
"That's all right for storms, maybe. But how about a cold wave? Fred,
here, said that a cold wave was coming. Can you figure that out in the
same way?"
"Certainly," the weather expert answered. "As a matter of fact, it is
comparatively easy. A cold wave is simply a fall of temperature caused
by the cold air from the upper atmosphere sweeping downwards after a
cyclone of low pressure has passed."
"A cyclone?" ejaculated Ross, in surprise. "Is there always a cyclone
before a cold wave?"
"Always," the Forecaster answered, "but, unless I'm mistaken, Ross,
you're using the word 'cyclone' in the wrong sense. Most people do. I
suppose you think a cyclone is some kind of a whirlwind, a particularly
violent storm, eh?"
"Yes, sir," said Ross, "that's what I thought."
"Well, Anton can tell you better than that," the weather expert
rejoined. "Tell him what a cyclone is, Anton."
"So far as I can make out," the crippled lad answered, "a cyclone is a
whirl in the air, generally from five hundred to a thousand miles
across, in the middle of which the barometer is very low, and on the
edge of which the barometer rises. It always has winds that blow
spirally inwards, those in the United States whirling in a direction
opposite to the movement of the hands of a clock.
"So you see, Ross, to the east of a 'low' or ahead of it, the winds are
southeasterly, to the north they are northeasterly, to the west, or
behind it, they are northwesterly, and to the south, they are
southeasterly, all curving into the centre and shifting as the 'low'
advances. As these 'lows' travel along the storm track at an average
rate of four hundred miles a day, as mountains interfere, and as the
shape of a 'low' in America isn't quite round, but looks like a sort of
crooked oval, it takes close figuring to find out what the wind is going
to do."
"And where does the cold wave come in?" persisted the farmer.
"That comes after the cyclone," explained Anton. "A 'low' means that the
pressure of the atmosphere is less than usual, and, consequently,
doesn't press the mercury up so far in the barometer. The air weighs
less, that shows that it must be expanding. The winds in front blowing
into a 'low' are generally warm winds. When a 'low' is traveling fast,
with a 'high' or 'anti-cyclone' behind, the colder winds come rushing
forward to take the place of the rising warm air and they bring colder
weather with them. The freeze comes during the early clearing weather of
a 'high,' before the anti-cyclonic winds--which blow in the opposite
direction, the way of the hands of a clock--have had a chance to steady
down."
"Then," said the farmer shrewdly, "if you get reports of wind and of
barometer from points to the west and northwest, you can tell when a
cold wave in on the way. Is that it?"
"Exactly," the Forecaster replied. "We cannot always tell, of course,
when the weather is going to be a little colder or a little warmer, but
a cold wave, serious enough to damage crops and property, can always be
foretold. Remember your storm tracks again. In this county, in the State
of Mississippi, we are very unlikely to get a freeze, unless there is a
rapidly moving 'low' passing up towards the Ohio and St. Lawrence
Valleys followed by an equally energetic 'high' plunging down from the
Canadian Northwest."
"And can you always tell what the weather is like, all over the
country?"
"Yes, indeed," the Forecaster answered. "There are two hundred official
stations scattered all over the United States and the West Indies, each
one carefully selected because its site is a key station to weather
changes. Twice a day, exactly at eight o'clock in the morning and eight
o'clock in the evening, the observations are taken at each station."
"And have they all got rain gauges like mine?" asked Anton.
"Yes, all of them."
"And wind-measurers, like my anemometer?" queried Tom.
"Yes," the Forecaster agreed with a smile, "and some of them have
devices that make a continuous record of wind velocity."
"And barometers like mine?" put in one of the younger boys, not to be
outdone.
"Various forms of barometers, and barographs, and thermographs, and
sunshine recorders and all sorts of things. Some of them even have
seismographs, which tell of every tiny little earthquake, that may be
going on all over the world. You know, boys, there's hardly an hour of
the day that there isn't a small earthquake, somewhere, and there are
really quite sizeable earthquakes at least once a month. A
well-equipped weather office is quite a complicated affair, and it takes
well-trained men to conduct the observations and interpret them
properly."
"All those observations are sent to Washington, aren't they, sir?"
queried Anton. "Just as I send mine every night to Bob, for him to
transmit by wireless."
"Just the same way," the Forecaster answered, "except that they're all
sent in cipher, of course. Once in a while the cipher results in some
queer combinations. The regular routine requires that an observer send
the temperature, the barometric pressure of the atmosphere, the amount
of rain or snow, the direction and force of the wind, the state of the
weather, the types of clouds and the highest and lowest temperature
since the last observation. I remember once, while at the Milwaukee
station, we got the following message from La Crosse, Wisconsin:
"'Cross All My Ink Frozen'
"It so happened that we had Charlie Cross working at that station at
that time, but the message did not apply to him, nor, for that matter,
to his ink. On second consideration and reading, the message read very
differently. 'Cross' was the code name of the station; 'All' meant that
his barometer read 30.02 and that his morning temperature was zero; 'My'
conveyed the information that his sky was clear, the wind from the south
and that his minimum temperature for the night was zero; 'Ink' informed
us that the wind velocity at the station was six miles an hour and that
he could not add the usual height of the water in the Mississippi as the
river was 'frozen.' Similar code messages are sent in twice a day from
each of the two hundred stations.
"So you see, Mr. Tighe, if all these various observations combine to
describe a certain weather type, if we can check up the accuracy by
comparison with stations to the north, south, east and west, and if all
these combine to produce a certain definite picture, our weather
forecast can be made with tolerable certainty. As an absolute matter of
fact, during the past six years, the exact percentage of accurate
forecasts is eighty-two per cent, and of the eighteen per cent
remaining, eleven were partly right. That leaves a very small proportion
of mistakes in weather forecasting. Now, let us take in detail the cold
wave which Fred, quite rightly, said was on its way here.
"Here is the Weather Map of the day before yesterday." He placed it on
the table in front of the old farmer. "You will notice two sets of
curved lines, solid lines and dotted lines. The solid lines are called
'isobars' and they follow the course of places which have the same
barometric pressure. The dotted lines are called 'isotherms' and they
follow the lines of places having the same temperature. These maps are
never twice the same. The Weather Bureau does not possess on its books
the record of any two days when the weather was duplicated over the
United States."
"You mean that every day's weather map is different?"
"As different as every human face," the Forecaster replied, "and to
those of us who have done much forecasting, it is as easy to see from
the map when the weather is going to be peaceful or stormy as it is to
tell whether a man is smiling or scowling. But let us look at these
three charts closely, and you will see just why Fred was right.
"At eight o'clock in the morning, the day before yesterday, there was a
well-defined 'low' with a barometer of 29.8 just east of Salt Lake City,
driving warmer weather before it. Issaquena County was just recovering
from the effects of a 'high,' which, as you can see on the map, was
disappearing by its favorite route, the St. Lawrence Valley. What was
your temperature here the day before yesterday, Anton?"
"Thirty-six degrees, sir," the crippled lad answered, rapidly consulting
his week's record, which was hanging on the wall.
"Fairly cold, you see. And the wind, Tom?"
Tom pulled out a note-book from his pocket.
"North-east, sir," he said.
"Very good. Now, Mr. Tighe, you can see from the map that the barometric
pressure, the isobar, running through this part of the country shows a
barometric pressure of 30.30. From what Anton told you, it is easy to
see that, the day before yesterday, Issaquena County was still in the
grip of the tail end of a 'high,' with a high barometric pressure--five
points above the low in Salt Lake City--with a cold temperature, and
with a wind blowing outwards from the 'high' or anti-cyclone. Is that
clear?"
"Clear as well water," the farmer declared.
"Now," said the Forecaster, "let us look at yesterday's map for eight
o'clock in the morning. Here, just over the Canadian border, right at
Medicine Hat--as though to make good the old proverb--is a vigorous
'high,' with a barometer of 30.50, with a temperature of 20° below zero
and with the winds blowing outward from the centre. The 'low,' which the
day before yesterday was central over Salt Lake City, yesterday was
central over Oklahoma City. It has, therefore, traveled over five
hundred miles in the day. On all sides of the 'low' there is rain, and
you remember how it rained here, yesterday morning, early?"
"Indeed I do," said Jed Tighe. "I didn't get out on the land until
nearly eleven o'clock."
"Now what was the temperature here yesterday morning, Anton?" the
Forecaster queried.
"Forty-six degrees," answered Anton promptly, for he had been expecting
the question.
"Ten degrees warmer, you see, Mr. Tighe, as the 'low' came nearer. And
what was the wind, Tom?"
"South-south-east," the lad answered, his note-book in hand.
"Showing," the Forecaster explained, "that during the twenty-four hours,
Issaquena County had lost the effect of the 'high,' which has
disappeared from the map, and was fully in the grip of the oncoming
'low.' Now, if you look at the map, Mr. Tighe, you'll see that the
isobar for this region shows a barometer pressure of 29.50, a terrific
drop of four points in twenty-four hours. No wonder it rained!"
The farmer bent over the map, his eyes glued on the lines which suddenly
seemed to spring into life before him.
"Down over the country comes this 'low,' at the rate of five hundred
miles a day, with rain and moist winds accompanying it, and sharp on its
heels, racing from the north, comes the cold 'high' which we have just
seen forming at Medicine Hat. The cold wave is fully organized and is on
its way."
He laid the third map on the table.
"Here is the situation at eight o'clock this morning," he said. "The
'low' or storm, has swung at right angles, following the preferred Ohio
and St. Lawrence Valley Route. It left Toledo early this morning and at
eight o'clock was raging over the Great Lakes, with its centre north of
Buffalo. It is speeding up, you see, having traveled eight hundred miles
since yesterday. The cold wave 'high' from Medicine Hat has traveled
along its usual track and is now central over Kansas, with clear skies
and a drop of thirty degrees in temperature. There was a severe freeze
in Kansas last night, with zero temperatures, and freezing point was
touched on the Mexican border."
"Whew," whistled the farmer, "and is that on its way here?"
"It is," the Forecaster answered. "Your temperature?" he continued,
turning to the boy.
"Thirty-seven," Anton answered.
"Going down rapidly, you see. The wind, Tom?"
"Northwest."
"Blowing outwards from the rapidly approaching 'high.'"
"What's the barometer?" asked the farmer, who was quickly grasping the
manner of reading a weather map.
"It has gone up again to 30.02. The cold wave is coming fast. Since
Dodge City, Kansas, is about five hundred miles from here, and since the
'high' is traveling at about seven hundred miles a day, and as,
moreover, there is generally a slight slowing up as it makes the turn,
the centre of the 'high' ought to strike us here about six o'clock
tomorrow morning. The cold wave, however, is in advance of the centre,
so Mr. Tighe, you need to be prepared for a cold wave tonight.
"If you ship your potatoes this afternoon, as you planned to do, they
would meet severe weather and might get frozen. If you ship them
tomorrow, you might be safe, but you couldn't be sure, because the
'high' is turning northwards and therefore its eastward distance is not
so great. If you ship them on Monday you would be safe, but even then
you could not ship them to New York, for a fast train might overtake the
tail of the cold wave. On Tuesday you can safely ship them to any part
of the United States."
The farmer stepped back from the table and his eye roved over the boys.
"And was that the way that you lads figured out that my fruit was likely
to be frozen?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," said Anton, "that was how."
"It's a marvel," the farmer declared. "I don't see why more people don't
use these Weather Maps."
"Hundreds of thousands of people do," the Forecaster replied. "You'd be
surprised, Mr. Tighe, if you knew how big business firms all over the
country study these changes of weather. Heating and lighting plants of
great cities study conditions of cold and of darkness. Municipal
systems, with exposed water mains, take precautions against frost.
Large stockyards, like those of Chicago, drain their water pipes.
Gasoline engines are drained. Street railway companies are supposed to
turn more heat into their cars. Natural gas companies are required to
put on a greater pressure. Dredging of sand and gravel is suspended.
Piles of iron ore, lying on wharves, are placed in the holds of vessels
to keep the ore from freezing solid.
"Take ordinary questions of trade, which we all know well. Wholesalers
distribute stocks of cold-weather goods to retailers when a cold spell
is forecast, and wideawake retailers make special provisions for it.
Advertising managers of big department stores, who prepare their
advertisements for the daily papers, the day before, study weather
reports very carefully. You can go into an ad-writer's office, with the
sun shining in at his window, and find that he is writing display of
umbrellas and rubbers. The explanation is the Weather Map, which is
lying on his desk. Everywhere you go, you'll find that the really big
business organizations study the Weather Reports as closely as a
stock-broker studies the Wall Street reports."
The farmer stared at the Forecaster.
"Why," he said, in astonishment, "I never had any idea that the Weather
Forecast was so important. I just thought people read it to know whether
it was going to rain, whether they should take an umbrella or not."
"Rain forecasts," the weather expert rejoined, "may be useful for one's
personal comfort, but their importance is nation-wide. Until a few years
ago, one-eighth of the value of the entire raisin crop was lost every
year by occasional showers while the fruit was drying. The Weather
Bureau established a special service to take care of this region and for
five years there has not been a single non-avoidable loss. Berries are
picked before rain. Vegetables which are dug before rain, stand shipment
better than those dug afterwards. In the alfalfa region, rain forecasts
are all-important, since the hay can be baled in the field when it is
dry but not when it is wet.
"Every kind of brick, cement, and lime manufacture has got to be
protected from the rain, and twenty-four hours' notice enables all such
factories to protect their product. Contractors for outdoor work make
their estimates and contracts on the basis of weather forecasts,
railroad companies provide against washouts, and irrigation companies
control their output of water according to the expected rainfall."
"This is great stuff," said Fred, under his breath to Ross. "I'm going
to run this in the _Review_!"
"Snow warnings," the Forecaster went on, "are of equal value. All over
the western country, where the snows are apt to be heavy, the tonnage of
passenger and freight trains is made up in accordance with the expected
weather, and the snow-fighting equipment is prepared. On the great
Western ranches, stock is hurried from the open range either to
constructed shelters or to naturally protected gullies, on notice of
blizzards, northers and heavy snows. This is especially necessary on
sheep ranches. Twenty-four hours' notice of a heavy snow-storm saves the
country at least half a million dollars in stock loss and property
damage.
"Storm warnings, perhaps, are even more important. Hundreds of lives are
saved, every year, by vessels remaining in port when a storm or
hurricane is expected. A recent storm on the Great Lakes was forecast as
being so severe that scarcely any vessels left port. Many ships,
undoubtedly, would have foundered, had they been out in the gale. Yet,
aside from the Weather Map, there was no local indication that bad
weather was brewing. When storm warnings are issued, fishermen take
steps to protect their boats and nets and a fisherman's boat and net is
his whole livelihood. Lumbermen make their booms of logs secure.
Rice-planters flood their crops to prevent the breaking of the brittle
straw by the wind. Wherever construction work is proceeding, and a wind
of unusual force is forecast, builders and engineers make doubly secure
that which is already constructed, instead of proceeding with outlying
portions of the structure.
"In short, Mr. Tighe, there is scarcely a business in the country which
would not be benefited by a close study of weather conditions. The
difference between a careful man and a careless one is the difference
between a man who thinks in advance and a man who does not think until
some condition of grave difficulty is thrust upon him. Weather is, to
this day, and will ever remain, one of the most potent factors in human
welfare, and a man cannot plan for the weather in advance, unless he has
a weather forecast."
The farmer brought his fist down on the table with a thump.
"Tell me, then," he said, "since all the big business firms in the
country use the Weather Bureau so completely, why do people laugh at the
Weather Man?"
"That's very simply answered," the Forecaster replied, "it's because
every one is not a wide-awake business firm. Ask a commission merchant,
whose business depends upon his receiving his produce in good condition,
whether the Weather Bureau warnings are profitable or no? Ask a fruit
merchant, who knows that a difference of twenty degrees in temperature
during shipment spells either profit or disaster! Ask a shipowner on the
Great Lakes or the captain of a trading schooner in the Gulf! These men
will tell you that their lives and their fortunes hang on their careful
understanding of the weather. But if you ask some one who merely wants
to know whether or not to wear new clothes or whether it will be safe to
have a picnic on a certain afternoon--then, indeed, unless the weather
is of the particular pattern that they prefer, you are apt to hear that
'the Weather Man is always wrong.'
"There's another reason, too," he admitted, "and that is that local
conditions may differ from regional conditions. I've shown you that
there's a cold wave coming, and that over this section the temperature
may drop twenty degrees. But suppose your thermometer, Mr. Tighe, is
near the slope of a hill, which starts a small current of air moving,
just enough to keep the air well mixed, then your thermometer may not
register a fall of more than ten degrees, and you'll accuse me of being
an alarmist. None the less, in a valley a quarter of a mile from your
thermometer, the temperature may have dropped twenty-five degrees and
for a hundred miles in every direction, the average temperature will be
equally low.
"Suppose, over a section as large as the Gulf States, or New England,
the Weather Bureau announces a forecast of showers. There might be
stretches of fifty miles square in which never a drop of rain fell, and
people in a hundred towns would take their umbrellas needlessly. Yet, in
six hundred other towns in that region, there would be showers.
"Naturally, the Weather Bureau could give a much more detailed, though
not necessarily a more accurate report, if, instead of having 200
stations, we had two thousand, and if the appropriations of the Bureau
were multiplied by ten, so that there might be a larger force to
interpret and explain the observations that have been recorded. Still,
we're all proud of the Weather Bureau and its work, and if you watch it
closely, Mr. Tighe, you won't find us far out. Just as a test of it,
keep your potatoes in your root-house until Tuesday and watch the
thermometer for the next two days."
"I'll do that," said the farmer, "and I'm much obliged." He took his
hat. "Any of you boys coming my way?" he asked.
This was an unheard-of geniality on the part of Jed Tighe, but two of
the boys jumped at the offer. The last words that the Forecaster heard
were in the farmer's voice, as he drove off:
"About that Weather Map, now--"
Mr. Levin nodded to the two boys and strolled across the sun-dial lawn
to his own buggy, well satisfied that another convert to the Weather
Bureau work had been made.
About ten days after this meeting, after supper, just as Anton was going
to bed, his father came in with a grave face.
"I'm afraid Dan'l's in a peck of trouble," he said.
"Why, Father?" asked the crippled lad.
"He's accused of having shot Carl Lindstrom," was the startling reply.
"But he couldn't!" declared Anton, jumping at once to the defence of the
darky.
"Well," his father said, "it looks a little black for him. I don't mean,
of course, that there's anything purposed, but it looks as if Dan'l had
been careless with his gun. Carl was shot in the leg this evening, just
as we heard. Now it appears that, about the same time, Dan'l was seen
walking with his gun and his two old hounds at his heels, coming from
that direction along the levee."
"Oh, I'm sure it can't be Dan'l," said Anton. "Where is he?"
"In his cabin, under arrest," his father said. "The sheriff's there.
Dan'l seems quite excited about it and he said he wouldn't move until he
saw you."
"Sure," said Anton, reaching out for his crutch. "I know well enough he
didn't do it, though."
He hurried across the sun-dial to the negro's quarters.
It was a poignant scene that Anton faced when he reached the hut. Dan'l
was sitting on the bed, in shirt and trousers, evidently having just
been awakened from sleep. The sheriff, tall and rangy, showed little
interest in the affair. To him it was a clear case. The man had been
shot. The negro had been seen in the neighborhood with a gun. What more
proof could any one want? The brother of the man who had been shot, a
nervous, excitable chap, was there and wanted to lynch Dan'l
immediately. One of the sheriff's men, keen and watchful, stood beside
his prisoner, his hand on the negro's shoulder.
"Ah never done it, Mistah Anton," said Dan'l, as the boy came in, "Ah
never done nothin'!"
"I've brought Anton, Dan'l," said the father, quietly, "but it doesn't
do you any good to say anything. They'll only make use of everything you
say."
"Ah've got nothin' to say," the darky declared. "Ah jes' went after some
rabbit an' come home. Ah've been in my bed since a little after
sundown."
"You couldn't ha' been," declared the sheriff, "'cause the injured man
wa'n't shot till it was nigh dark."
"What time was the shooting?" asked Anton.
"Between a quarter and a half after eight," the sheriff replied coolly,
"we know that much fo' sure, any way. And Dan'l can't show an alibi. He
says he was in bed. His bed can't give evidence in court. Yo' didn't see
him, Anton?"
"No," the boy answered, "I haven't been out of the house since seven
o'clock except just to my rain-gauge."
"Well," said the sheriff, yawning, "that's yo' last chance, Dan'l. If
Anton had seen yo', there'd have been a witness. But yo' ain't got none
and Ole Lindstrom, here, declares that he seen yo' jes' afore it got
dark."
"Ah've done nothin'!" the darky declared.
The sheriff kicked the darky's tattered boots across the floor, not
unkindly.
"Hyar," he said, "put yo' shoes on. Carl ain't goin' to die, and the
jedge won't do much to yo'."
"Ah never done nothin'," the negro protested, but he leant down as he
was told, and started to put on his shoes.
One of the shoes had slid close to Anton's feet, almost knocking the
crutch out of his hand, and the lad's glance fell on it. He started.
"What time did you say the shooting was done, Mr. Abner?" he asked.
"Between a quarter and a half after eight," the sheriff replied.
With a sudden excitement in his voice, Anton turned to the negro.
"How many pairs of shoes have you got?" he asked.
Dan'l caught the tension in his voice.
"Two pair, Mistah Anton," he said.
"Which did you wear this afternoon?"
"These hyar."
"And where are the others?"
"In yonder corner."
Anton limped across the room and brought out the second pair of shoes.
The leather was all dry and wrinkled. They had evidently not been used
for a long time.
"He's right, Mr. Abner," he said, "he wore those shoes."
The sheriff, divining by the excitement in the boy's voice that there
was a hidden purpose in these remarks, took up the second pair of shoes
and looked at them.
"Yes, that's sho'," he answered, "he didn't wear these hyar!"
"Then he wore those," said Anton.
"Well, what if he did?"
"Look at your shoes," said the boy.
"Well?" queried the sheriff, looking down at his boots.
"They're muddy, aren't they?" persisted the boy.
"Right muddy," the sheriff agreed.
"And Bill's shoes are muddy, too."
There was no doubt of that, either.
"Well?" said the sheriff, questioningly.
For answer Anton held out Dan'l's other shoe, the one he had been
holding in his hand.
"This isn't muddy," he said. "What's more, it's got dust on it, dust in
all the cracks. You can see it hasn't been cleaned for a long time,
probably never since it was given him."
"Well?" repeated the sheriff, still uncomprehending.
"Lindstrom's place is more'n a mile from here," declared Anton, his
heart beating hard.
"Jest a mile," said Ole Lindstrom.
"And you say the shooting was before half-past eight?"
"It sho' was," the sheriff answered, "it was jest a little after
half-past eight that Carl was carried home."
"Then," declared Anton, in a quiet way that carried conviction, "Dan'l
didn't do it, and I can prove it."
"Mistah Anton! Mistah Anton!" the darky cried.
"Quiet! You!" said the man who was holding the prisoner.
"What do you mean, Anton?" the boy's father asked him.
"It's quite easy," the boy declared. "If the shooting was done before
half-past eight, it was done just about the time that the rain began. It
would take Dan'l--if he'd done it--all of twenty minutes to walk from
Lindstrom's place here. It rained heavily, if you like I can give you
the amount of rain in tenths of an inch, and twenty minutes of walking
in that rain would make him wet through. By the time it had rained five
minutes, the ground would be muddy. But see, Mr. Abner, the soles of the
shoes are quite dry. And, Dan'l's clothes are quite dry."
He picked up the gun that stood leaning in the corner.
"The gun's dry, it hasn't been cleaned and there's no rust on it. Dan'l
hasn't got two sets of rough clothes and he sure hasn't got two guns.
Doesn't that prove he couldn't have been out after the rain started?"
The sheriff looked a little dubious.
"Yo' sho' put up a good argument for yo' nigger," he said, "but yo'
boys' foolin' about weather ain't evidence. That don't go in court, yo'
know."
"You're a little wrong there, Mr. Abner," said Anton's father. "This is
an official co-operative observer's station of the Weather Bureau. By a
decision of the supreme court, our records have got to be accepted as
evidence. There's a ruling to that effect."
"There is, eh?" said the sheriff. "First I ever knew of it. But if yo'
say so, why, of course, it's so. But how can you-all tell when the rain
began?"
"When rain comes down unusually hard," the boy answered, "the Weather
Bureau likes to keep a record of the amount of precipitation in five
minute intervals. My big record-book is in the house, but here are the
notes I made," and he took a little note-book from the pocket of his
shirt.
"'Rain began, 8.21,'" he read, "'first five minutes three-tenths of an
inch, second five minutes four-tenths, third five minutes,
three-tenths,'" he stopped and held the book open, "it began to get
less, then, and I didn't need to keep the record any longer. But you can
see, Mr. Abner, that it was impossible for Dan'l to have left the
Lindstroms' and reached here before the rain came, and just as
impossible for him to have come through the rain with dry clothes and
dusty shoes."
"An' the courts have a ruling that weather records is evidence?"
"From an official station such as this, yes!" Anton's father declared.
"Evidence as to weather is a factor in a great variety of cases. Civil
cases are largely personal injury, damage to perishable goods by
freezing or rain and loss by fire. The criminal cases are usually
confined to murder trials.
"When accidents occur by reason of a street car running into somebody or
something, the question arises as to whether the rails were so slippery
that the car could not be stopped. This fact is, of course, important in
an action for damages. A slippery rail can be caused by 'sweating' but
it is generally due to recent rain. The relative humidity may be such
as to prevent the drying up of the rail.
"An observer was called in a case where it was alleged that the
plaintiff had been injured by being pitched through the open window of a
car. It was claimed that she was trying to shut the window on account of
the raw, cold weather and, as the car reached a curve, she was suddenly
thrown headlong into the street. The weather record showed that it was a
warm and sunny day.
"The question as to whether a sidewalk was sufficiently slippery to make
it dangerous for travel frequently comes up in court. One such case, I
remember, was that of a man who asked damages from a jitney driver for
starting his bus before he had alighted. The driver declared that the
passenger slipped and fell on the ice in the gutter, several feet away
from the bus. The plaintiff declared that it was a warm day and that
there was no ice. The weather record showed rain the day before, with a
severe frost during the night, precisely the conditions to support the
jitney-driver's story.
"Many accidents are alleged to have been due to fog. The weather expert
is called upon to testify to the degree of visibility permitted by
atmospheric conditions. One man who was accused of murder and who
undoubtedly would have been convicted, was positively identified by the
wife of the murdered man, the woman declaring that she saw him at a
certain hour of the evening passing in front of the house. The Weather
Records showed conclusively that, at that hour, owing to the excessive
cloudiness of the atmosphere, it would have been impossible for the
woman to identify the suspect, even at half the distance.
"Wind records are often very important. In April, 1902, a severe storm
moved over the middle western states, and, at one place in Indiana, it
developed such velocity as to start in motion an empty box car standing
on a railway siding. It was carried on to the main track, the derailing
switch not being turned, and ran for two miles before the wind, the
grade being slightly up-hill. It finally collided with a passenger train
and several persons were killed. The railroad company produced the
weather records to show that a storm of such violence was outside the
common run of events, seeking thereby to lessen the amounts awarded for
damages.
"This direction of the wind often is called into requisition. A suit
for many thousand dollars was brought by the owners of some property in
Chicago, against a railroad company, the property-owners alleging that a
fire which had destroyed some of the buildings had originated from
sparks from a locomotive. The Weather Bureau records, however, showed
that there was a brisk wind blowing directly from the property to the
railroad. Of course, all damages incurred in storms of unusual severity,
such as the St. Louis tornado or the Galveston Flood, would be ignored
in a court of law, as they would come under the head of unavoidable
happenings of 'the act of Providence,' a well-known legal phrase. In all
matters connected with events in which the weather is a possible factor,
the Weather Bureau observer has a place and a part, and the United
States Supreme Court, as long as thirty-five years ago, ruled that
weather records were competent evidence."
"I reckon yo' is wrong, Mr. Lindstrom," said the sheriff, turning to the
brother of the wounded man. "Ef the weather records goes as read, this
hyar's a powerful bit of evidence. Look at them shoes!"
"I'm satisfied," the other remarked gloomily, "I reckon the boy's
right. But I'd have sworn that it was him I saw. All right, Sheriff,
I'll withdraw the charge."
"Let him go, Bill," said the sheriff, nodding to his assistant. "That's
a mighty narrow escape fo' yo' nigger," he continued, "I thought it was
yo' myself, for sho'."
For a moment Dan'l did not understand. Then it flashed over him.
"Ah's free! Ah's free!" he cried, and fell on his knees on the floor.