File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (18156829252).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo16amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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PREDICTION 0^ CLIMATIC VARIATIONS 103 priated to pay the salaries of half a dozen real investigators whose work would be merely to ponder on the figures gathered by others and extract from them the inner meaning. The officials of the Weather Bureau deserve all praise for the large amoimt of in^'estiga- tion that they carry on, but the great majority of them have to do it as a by- product. Their time is mainly taken up with routine work which tires the mind and leaves it too much exhausted for the artluous work of framing and testing hypotheses. The far more valu- able work which many of them might do is relegated to the time that they can snatch from their other tasks or from evenings and \acations. If Congress could be persuaded to let the Weather Biu'cau put five or six of the country's l)est meteorologists to work on the prob- lem of the causes of climatic changes and to devote all their time to it with suitable clerical assistance, there is little doubt that within ten years we should be far on the way to the prediction of the weather months in advance. Some day we shall doul)tless achieve that result even under the present handicaps, but the country would be vastly richer if it would hasten the result by encouraging its Weather Bureau to engage in ab- struse studies which may not appear practical now, but which in the end will lead to the saving of millions and billions of dollars.
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Darkest shading, regions of maximiim storniiness; nexl darkest, moderate storminess; lightest shading, very slight storminess; dotted areas, without cyclonic storms. Median lines of the main storm area and its brandies are indicated by heavy solid lines; the hypothetical median lines of the ancient storm belts are shown by doited lines. Changes of climate in the past have consisted largely of variations in the location of the storm belt — In the past and today no natioc has risen to the highest grade of civilization except in regions where the stimulus from storms is great; the distribution of civilization closely follows the distribution of climatic energy (From Cioiliza- tion and Climate)

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