Latest / Around the Clock in Europe : A Travel Sequence / National Geographic Magazine Vol. 08 - 03. March 1897-National Geographic Society

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National Geographic Magazine Vol. 08 - 03. March 1897-National Geographic Society · Around the Clock in Europe : A Travel Sequence

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  Speaker 1: Section one of the National Geographic Magazine, Volume eight March
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  Speaker 1: eighteen ninety seven. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Mirianne Spiegel.
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  Speaker 1: Storms and Weather Forecasts by Professor Willis L. Moore, Chief
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  Speaker 1: of the United States Weather Bureau, Part one. While the
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  Speaker 1: practical application of meteorological science to the making of weather
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  Speaker 1: forecasts will never reach the degree of accuracy attained by
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  Speaker 1: theoretical astronomy in predicting the date of an eclipse or
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  Speaker 1: the return of a comet, meteorology has made during the
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  Speaker 1: last century such substantial progress as to seriously engage the
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  Speaker 1: attention of thoughtful man, and to cause him to make
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  Speaker 1: special effort to apply the knowledge gained to the commerce
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  Speaker 1: and industry of the world. Comparing meteorology with astronomy, we
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  Speaker 1: may say that it passed through the Chaldean and Ptolemaic
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  Speaker 1: periods with the invention of the barometer and thermometer early
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  Speaker 1: in the seventeenth century. It reached the Capernian stage with
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  Speaker 1: the discovery of the rotary and progressive motion of storms,
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  Speaker 1: and that it now awaits the genius of a Kepler
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  Speaker 1: or the magic intuition of a Newton, to unravel the
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  Speaker 1: mysteries that still baffle the student. But it is doubtful
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  Speaker 1: whether any other branch of science, unless it be electricity,
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  Speaker 1: has shown more wonderful progress during the past quarter century.
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  Speaker 1: Where man, but a few years ago, on account of
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  Speaker 1: his limited range of vision, thought that chaos reigned supreme,
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  Speaker 1: we are now able, by the aid of daily meteorological
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  Speaker 1: observations and the wonderful telegraph, joining our cities by an
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  Speaker 1: electrical touch, to trace out the harmonious operations of many
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  Speaker 1: physical laws that previously were unknown. Practical meteorology is, to
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  Speaker 1: some extent a tentative work. It may be placed upon
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  Speaker 1: a plane with the theory and practice of medicine and surgery.
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  Speaker 1: The forecaster is in a degree guided in his calculations
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  Speaker 1: by symptoms, and he is able to diagnose the atmospheric
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  Speaker 1: conditions with about the same degree of accuracy that the
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  Speaker 1: physician is able to determine the bodily condition of the patient.
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  Speaker 1: He is able to forecast changes in the weather with
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  Speaker 1: rather more certainty than the skilled physician can predict the
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  Speaker 1: course of a well defined disease. As to the genesis
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  Speaker 1: of weather forecasting, it must be said that to the
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  Speaker 1: immortal Franklin belongs the credit of divining that storms have
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  Speaker 1: a rotary motion, and that they progress in an easterly direction.
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  Speaker 1: To be sure, without the aid of the telegraph and
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  Speaker 1: of simultaneous observations, his discovery was little more than a speculation. Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: it was one of those sagacious anticipations of coming knowledge
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  Speaker 1: which mark the true scientific genius. Grand as a patriot, able,
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  Speaker 1: as a statesman and diplomat, he was no less great
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  Speaker 1: As a student in the broad Domatus sone. He was
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  Speaker 1: one of the isolated figures that stand so far in
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  Speaker 1: advance of the knowledge of their day as often to
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  Speaker 1: be imperfectly understood. His idea of drawing the lightning from
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  Speaker 1: the clouds and identifying it with the electric currents of
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  Speaker 1: the earth was capable of physical demonstration, but his contemporaries
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  Speaker 1: did not appreciate his philosophy of storms, written in a
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  Speaker 1: fragmentary manner before seventeen fifty, and so it remained for Redfield, S. B.
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  Speaker 1: Henry Loomis Maury, and other Americans one hundred years later
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  Speaker 1: to gather the data and completely establish that which the
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  Speaker 1: great Franklins so accurately had outlined. American meteorologists can justly
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  Speaker 1: take pride in the achievements of these their countrymen. In
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  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty five, Professor Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution
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  Speaker 1: collected by telegraph observations from a number of stations and
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  Speaker 1: displayed a large map showing the meteorological conditions at these points.
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  Speaker 1: But the breaking out of the Civil War caused him
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  Speaker 1: to suspend his reports. He made oral forecasts and used
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  Speaker 1: his charts for the purpose of demonstrating the utility of
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  Speaker 1: a government meteorological service and the feasibility of making forecasts
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  Speaker 1: from daily telegraphic synchronous observations. If there were no other
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  Speaker 1: achievements to the credit of this great institution, the work
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  Speaker 1: of Professor Henry, in connection with practical meteorology, would alone
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  Speaker 1: be sufficient to command the admiration of all who love knowledge,
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  Speaker 1: because of the benefits it confers upon man. As we
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  Speaker 1: glance into the past and hastily note the mile posts
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  Speaker 1: along the highways of science, the lives and actions of
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  Speaker 1: those who gave new thoughts, or who by their discoveries
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  Speaker 1: opened up useful and diverging paths stand like lofty beacon
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  Speaker 1: towers marking the rugged pathway pursued by advancing civilization. Professor
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  Speaker 1: Buy's ballot of Uttterch induced Holland to establish a weather
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  Speaker 1: service with telegraph reports and forecasts in eighteen sixty. England
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  Speaker 1: followed with a similar service in eighteen sixty one, and
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  Speaker 1: France in eighteen sixty three. The United States was the
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  Speaker 1: fourth government to establish a permanent weather service, although its
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  Speaker 1: scientists were the pioneers in discovering the progressive character of
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  Speaker 1: storms and in demonstrating the practicability of weather services. In
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  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine, Professor Cleveland Abbe published a weather bulletin
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  Speaker 1: and forecast at Cincinnati, based upon simultaneous observation secured by
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  Speaker 1: telegraph from about thirty stations. From the introduction of the
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  Speaker 1: electromagnetic telegraph in eighteen forty four down to eighteen sixty nine,
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  Speaker 1: intermittent and desultory advocations for a government weather service were
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  Speaker 1: made by many in this country. Finally, doctor Increase, a
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  Speaker 1: Lappin of Milwaukee, student, scientist and philanthropist, so aroused the
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  Speaker 1: property and industrial interests of the country by the facts
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  Speaker 1: that he presented relative to the destruction of life and
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  Speaker 1: property by storms on Lake Michigan. That Congress, under the
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  Speaker 1: provisions of a bill introduced by General Halbert E. Paine,
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  Speaker 1: was induced to appropriate money to initiate such a service.
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  Speaker 1: To General Albert J. Meyer, chief Signal Officer of the
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  Speaker 1: United States Army, was entrusted the duty of inaugurating a
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  Speaker 1: tentative weather service by deploying over the country as observers
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  Speaker 1: the military signalman of his command. The system by which
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  Speaker 1: the United States Weather Bureau collects meteorological observations and mixed
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  Speaker 1: weather forecasts may be briefly described as follows. This morning,
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  Speaker 1: at eight o'clock Washington time, which by the way, is
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  Speaker 1: about seven o'clock at Chicago, six o'clock at Denver, and
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  Speaker 1: five o'clock at San Francisco, the observers at about one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty stations scattered throughout the United States were
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  Speaker 1: taking their observations and from carefully tested and standardized instruments,
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  Speaker 1: noting all the elementary conditions of the air at the
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  Speaker 1: bottom of the great aerial Ocean in which we live,
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  Speaker 1: and which, by its variations of heat and cold, sunshine,
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  Speaker 1: cloud and tempest affects not only the health and happiness
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  Speaker 1: of man, but his commercial and industrial welfare. By eight
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  Speaker 1: twenty five a m. The necessary mathematical corrections have been made,
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  Speaker 1: the observations have been reduced to cipher, and each has
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  Speaker 1: been filed at the local telegraph office. During the next
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  Speaker 1: thirty or forty minutes, these observations with the right of
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  Speaker 1: way over all lines are speeding to their destinations, each
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  Speaker 1: station contributing its own observations and receiving in return, by
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  Speaker 1: an ingenious system of telegraph circuits such observations from other stations,
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  Speaker 1: as it may require. The observations from all stations are
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  Speaker 1: received at such centers as Washington, Chicago, New York, and
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  Speaker 1: other large cities, and nearly all cities having a weather
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  Speaker 1: bureau station receive a sufficient number of reports from other
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  Speaker 1: cities to justify the issuing of a daily weather map.
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  Speaker 1: Examining the accompanying charts, it may be well to glance
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  Speaker 1: at the central office in Washington while the observations are
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  Speaker 1: coming in, so as to get an idea of how
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  Speaker 1: the charts are made for the study of the forecast official.
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  Speaker 1: From these he gets a panoramic view not only of
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  Speaker 1: the exact conditions of the air over the whole country
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  Speaker 1: at the moment of taking the observations one hour before,
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  Speaker 1: but of the changes which have occurred in those conditions
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  Speaker 1: during the preceding twenty four hours. As fast as the
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  Speaker 1: reports come from the wires, they are passed to the
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  Speaker 1: forecast division, where a reader stands in the middle of
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  Speaker 1: the room and translates the cipher into figures and words
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  Speaker 1: of intelligible sequence. A force of clerks is engaged in
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  Speaker 1: making graphic representations of the geographical distribution of the different
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  Speaker 1: meteorological elements on blank charts of the United States. Each
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  Speaker 1: clerk copies from the translator that part of each station's
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  Speaker 1: report needed in the construction of his particular chart. One
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  Speaker 1: clerk constructs a chart showing the change in temperature during
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  Speaker 1: the preceding twenty four hours. Broad red lines separate the
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  Speaker 1: colder from the warmer regions, and narrow red lines enclose
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  Speaker 1: areas showing changes in temperature of more than ten degrees.
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  Speaker 1: The narrow lines generally run in oval or circular form, indicating,
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  Speaker 1: as will be shown subsequently, that atmospheric disturbances move and
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  Speaker 1: operate in the form of great progressive eddies. That there
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  Speaker 1: are central points of intensity from which the force of
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  Speaker 1: the disturbance diminishes in all directions. A second clerk constructs
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  Speaker 1: a chart showing the change that has occurred in the
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  Speaker 1: barometer during the past twenty four hours. As in the
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  Speaker 1: construction of the temperature chart, broad heavy lines of red
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  Speaker 1: separate the regions of rising barometer from those of falling barometer.
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  Speaker 1: Narrow lines enclose the areas over which the change in
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  Speaker 1: barometer has been greater than one tenth, and so on. Here,
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  Speaker 1: for instance, throughout a great expanse of territory, all the
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  Speaker 1: barometers are rising. That is to say, the air contracts,
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  Speaker 1: becomes denser and presses with greater force upon the surface
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  Speaker 1: of the mercury in the cisterns of the instruments, thereby
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  Speaker 1: sustaining the columns of liquid metal at a greater height
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  Speaker 1: in the vacuum tubes. Over another considerable area, the barometers
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  Speaker 1: are falling, as increasing temperature rarefies and expands the volume
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  Speaker 1: of the air, causing it to press upon the instruments
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  Speaker 1: with less force. This chart is extremely useful to the
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  Speaker 1: forecaster sense in connection with the general weather chart. It
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  Speaker 1: indicates whether or not the storm centers are increasing or
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  Speaker 1: decreasing in intensity, and what is of more importance, it
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  Speaker 1: gives in a great measure the first warning of the
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  Speaker 1: formation of storms. A third clerk constructs two charts, one
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  Speaker 1: showing the humidity of the air and the other the
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  Speaker 1: cloud areas, with the kind, amount and direction of the
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  Speaker 1: clouds at each station. It is often interesting to observe
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  Speaker 1: at a station on the cloud chart high cirrus clouds
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  Speaker 1: composed of minute ice spiculae moving from one direction, lower
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  Speaker 1: cumulostratus composed of condensed water vapor moving from another direction,
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  Speaker 1: and the wind at the surface of the earth flowing
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  Speaker 1: from a third point of the compass. Such erratic movements
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  Speaker 1: of the air strata are only observed immediately before or
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  Speaker 1: during rain or windstorms. A fourth clerk constructs a chart
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  Speaker 1: called the general weather chart, showing for each station the
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  Speaker 1: air temperature and pressure, the velocity and direction of the wind,
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  Speaker 1: the rain or snowfall since the last report, and the
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  Speaker 1: amount of cloudiness. The readings of the barometer on this
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  Speaker 1: chart are reduced to sea level, so that the variations
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  Speaker 1: in pressure due to local altitudes may not mask and
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  Speaker 1: obscure those due to storm formation. Then lines called isobars,
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  Speaker 1: are drawn through places having the same pressure. By drawing
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  Speaker 1: isobars for each difference in pressure of one tenth of
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  Speaker 1: an inch, the high and low pressure areas are soon
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  Speaker 1: enclosed in their proper circles. The word high is written
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  Speaker 1: at the center of the region of greatest air pressure,
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  Speaker 1: and the word low at the center of the area
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  Speaker 1: of least pressure. Under the influence of gravity, the air
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  Speaker 1: presses downward and outward in all directions, thus causing it
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  Speaker 1: to flow from a region of great pressure toward one
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  Speaker 1: of less The velocity with which the wind moves from
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  Speaker 1: the high toward the low will depend largely on the
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  Speaker 1: difference in air pressure. To better illustrate, if the barometer
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  Speaker 1: read twenty nine point five at Chicago and thirty point
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  Speaker 1: five at Bismarck, North Dakota, the difference of one inch
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  Speaker 1: in pressure would cause the air to move from Bismarck
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  Speaker 1: towards Chicago so rapidly that, after allowing for the resistance
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  Speaker 1: of the ground, there would remain a wind at the
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  Speaker 1: surface of the Earth of about fifty miles per hour,
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  Speaker 1: and Lake Michigan would experience a severe northwestern The forecaster
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  Speaker 1: knows that high pressure and low pressure areas drift across
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  Speaker 1: the country from the west towards the east at the
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  Speaker 1: rate of about six hundred miles daily, or about thirty
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  Speaker 1: seven miles per hour in winter and twenty two miles
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  Speaker 1: per hour in summer. That the highs are tended by dry, clear,
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  Speaker 1: and cooler weather, and that they are drawing down, by
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  Speaker 1: a vertical action of their centers, the cold air from
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  Speaker 1: great altitudes above the clouds, and causing it to flow
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  Speaker 1: away laterally along the surface of the Earth in all
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  Speaker 1: directions from the center. And that the high pressure areas
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  Speaker 1: sometimes becomes so intense in their vertical motion as to
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  Speaker 1: draw down such vast volumes of cold air that we
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  Speaker 1: call them cold waves. In the downward movement of the
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  Speaker 1: air in cold waves, we must concede that the loss
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  Speaker 1: of heat by radiation through a cloudless atmosphere is much
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  Speaker 1: greater than that dynamically gained by compression, Or else we
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  Speaker 1: must assume that the air possesses such intense cold at
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  Speaker 1: the elevation from which it is drawn, that, notwithstanding the
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  Speaker 1: heat gained by compression in its descent, it is still
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  Speaker 1: far below the normal temperature of the air near the
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  Speaker 1: surface of the Earth. The forecaster knows that although these
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  Speaker 1: intense high pressure areas first appear in the extreme northwest,
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  Speaker 1: they do not depend on the land of their birth
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  Speaker 1: for the cold they bring to us, and that cold
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  Speaker 1: waves are not simply immense rivers of air which have
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  Speaker 1: been chilled by flowing over the great snow and ice
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  Speaker 1: fields of the Arctic regions, as was once thought. He
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  Speaker 1: is also familiar with the fact that in the low
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  Speaker 1: pressure areas, the conditions of the air and its various
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  Speaker 1: movements are exactly the reverse of what they are in
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  Speaker 1: the high That the air is much warmer and moister,
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  Speaker 1: and that it is drawn spirally inward from all directions,
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  Speaker 1: instead of being forced outward as in the high. That
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  Speaker 1: it ascends as it approaches the center of the depression,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes causing rain or snow as it cools by expansion
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  Speaker 1: during its ascent, or as it encounters and mixes with
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  Speaker 1: air strata of lower temperature than its own. We know
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  Speaker 1: that while our am hemisphere expands upward to an altitude
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  Speaker 1: probably of fifty miles, it is so elastic and its
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  Speaker 1: expansion is so rapid as it recedes from the Earth,
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  Speaker 1: that half of its mass lies below the three mile level,
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  Speaker 1: and that our storms and cold waves are simply great
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  Speaker 1: swirls or eddies of the lower stratum of probably not
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  Speaker 1: more than five miles in thickness. That the air above
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  Speaker 1: the six mile level probably flows serenely eastward in these
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  Speaker 1: latitudes without being disturbed by our most severe storms. The
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  Speaker 1: forecaster is further aware of the fact that our high
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  Speaker 1: pressure and low pressure areas alternately drift eastward in periods
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  Speaker 1: at average about three days each, that they are not,
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  Speaker 1: in any sense the product of chance, but are part
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  Speaker 1: of that great divine economy that provides for seed time
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  Speaker 1: and harvest for by the action of the lows, the
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  Speaker 1: warm vapor bearing currents are sucked inland from the gulf
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  Speaker 1: and the ocean, and carried far over the continent, so
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  Speaker 1: that their moisture is condemned and scattered over the plains,
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  Speaker 1: rendering them tillable and suitable for the habitation of man.
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  Speaker 1: That the highs, in drawing down the cool, pure air
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  Speaker 1: from above, scatter and diffuse the carbonic acid gas exhaled
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  Speaker 1: by animal life and the fetid gases emanating from decaying
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  Speaker 1: organic matter. That the cold waves created by these high
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  Speaker 1: pressure areas are among the most beneficent gifts of nature,
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  Speaker 1: for their clear, dense air not only gives us more
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  Speaker 1: oxygen with each inspiration of the lungs, but the abnormally
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  Speaker 1: high electrification that always accompanies such air invigorates man and
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  Speaker 1: all other animal life. That the cold north wind, if
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  Speaker 1: it be dry, as it usually is, brings physical energy
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  Speaker 1: and mental buoyancy in its mighty breath. That four sevenths
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  Speaker 1: of all our storms come from the north plateau region
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  Speaker 1: of the Rocky Mountains and pass from this arid or
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  Speaker 1: sub arid region easterly over the Lakes and New England,
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  Speaker 1: producing but scanty rainfall. That the great part of the
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  Speaker 1: remaining three sevenths have their inception in the arid region
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  Speaker 1: of our southwestern states, and that as they move northeastward,
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  Speaker 1: they can nearly always be depended on to give bountiful rain,
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  Speaker 1: And that many of them cross the Atlantic and affect
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  Speaker 1: the continent of Europe. That a few, and by far
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  Speaker 1: the most severe wind and rain storms that touch any
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  Speaker 1: portion of our country originate in the West Indies and
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  Speaker 1: travel in a northwesterly direction until they touch our Gulf
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  Speaker 1: or South Atlantic coast. When they recurve to the northeast
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  Speaker 1: and sweep out along our Atlantic seaboard. During the prevalence
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  Speaker 1: of droughts in the Great Central Valleys, all the low
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  Speaker 1: pressure or storm conditions form in the middle or north
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  Speaker 1: plateau region of the Rocky Mountains. When such droughts are broken,
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  Speaker 1: it is usually accomplished by lows that form in Arizona,
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  Speaker 1: New Mexico, or Texas. For many years spent in daily
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  Speaker 1: watching the formation, progression, and dissipation of storms, the forecaster
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  Speaker 1: well knows that at times, by an acre of force
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  Speaker 1: not shown by observations taken at the bottom of the
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  Speaker 1: ocean of air, storms suddenly develop dangerous and unexpected energy
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  Speaker 1: or pursue courses not anticipated in his forecast, Or that
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  Speaker 1: the barometer at the center of the storm rises without
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  Speaker 1: any premonition and gradually dissipates the energy of the cyclonic whirl.
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  Speaker 1: These are a few of the generalizations of which the
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  Speaker 1: forecaster takes cognizance and which guide him in his deductions.
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  Speaker 1: In brief, he carefully notes the developments and movements in
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  Speaker 1: the air conditions during the preceding twenty four hours, and
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  Speaker 1: from the knowledge thus gained, he makes an empirical estimate
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  Speaker 1: of what the weather will be in the different sections
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  Speaker 1: of the country the following day. By preserving the weather
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  Speaker 1: charts each day and noting the movements of the highs
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  Speaker 1: and the lows, any intelligent person can make an accurate
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  Speaker 1: forecast for himself, always remembering that the lows, as they
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  Speaker 1: drift toward him from the west, bring warm weather and
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  Speaker 1: sometimes rain or snow, and that as they pass his
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  Speaker 1: place of observation, the highs following in the tracks of
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  Speaker 1: the lows, will bring cooler and probably fair weather. End
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  Speaker 1: of Part one, Section two of the National Geographic Magazine,
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  Speaker 1: Volume eight March eighteen ninety seven. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are the public domain. For more information
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Miriam Storms and Weather Forecasts by Professor Willis J. Moore,
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  Speaker 1: Part two. We will now examine the accompanying charts, and,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: after a brief review of the Weather Bureau River Service,
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  Speaker 1: will endeavor to trace the inception and progression of the
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: different classes of storms. The stations from which the Weather
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Bureau issues and rapidly distributes forecasts and flood warnings are
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: shown on Chart one. Small radio lines are drawn to
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  Speaker 1: each central station from upro points in various watersheds. From
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  Speaker 1: these points, daily telegraphic measurements of rainfall and temperature are
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  Speaker 1: sent to their respective centers, in addition to observations from
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  Speaker 1: many of the full meteorological stations of the Bureau not
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  Speaker 1: shown on this chart. With our many thousands of miles
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: of navigable rivers flowing through one of the most extensive
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and fruitful regions of the world, daily forecasts of the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: height of water in the various sections of each river
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: are of enormous benefit to navigation, and the warnings issued
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: when the precipitation is so heavy as to indicate the
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: gathering during the next two or three days of flood
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: volumes in the main streams are often worth many millions
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: to navigators and to those having movable property on low
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: grounds contiguous to the streams. The feasibility of making accurate
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: forecasts as to the height of water several days in
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: advance at any station of the system is no longer questioned.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: The forecaster at each river center considers the rainfall, the temperature,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: the melting of snow if there be any, the area
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: and slope of the watershed, and the permeability of the soil.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: From a study of floods in former years, he knows
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the time necessary for the flow of the water from
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: the tributaries to the main stream, and the time required
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: for the passage of the flood crests from one city
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: to another. The forecasts are, of course empirically made, but
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: still they are sufficiently accurate to possess a great value
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: to the people of the river districts. Some idea of
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: the vast destruction of property due to floods may be
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: gathered from the statement that the floods of eighteen eighty
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: one in eighteen eighty two caused a loss of not
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: less than fifteen million dollars to the property interests of
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. There was also a loss
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: of one hundred and thirty eight lives. In eighteen eighty four.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: The region about Cincinnati alone suffered a loss of over
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: ten million dollars in property. Chart Number two shows a
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: winter storm central in Iowa at eight a m. December fifteenth,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: eighteen ninety three. The word low marks the storm center.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: It is the one place in all the United States
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: where the barometer reading is the lowest. The heavy black
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: lines oval and nearly concentric around the low show the
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: gradation of air pressure as it increases quite uniformly in
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: all directions from the storm center outward. The arrows fly
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: with the wind, and as will be seen, are almost
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: without exception moving toward the low or storm center, clearly
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: demonstrating the effect of gravity in causing the air to
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: flow from the several regions marked high where the air
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: is abnormally heavy, towards the low, where the air is lighter.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: As the velocity of water flowing down an inclined plane
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: depends both on the slope of the plane and the
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: roughness of its surface. So the velocity of the wind
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: as it blows along the surface of the earth towards
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the storm center depends on the amount of the depression
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: of the barometer at the center and the resistance offered
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: by surfaces of varying degrees of roughness. The small figures
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: placed at the end of the arrows indicate high wind velocities.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: At Chicago, where the wind is blowing at the rate
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: of forty miles per hour, the anemometer is two hundred
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: seventy feet high, while at Minneapolis, where the instrument is
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: so low as to be in the stratum whose velocity
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: is restricted by the resistance encountered in flowing over forests
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: to the northward. The rate is not great enough to
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: be marked by a special figure. Now picture in your
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: mind the fact that all the air inside the ice
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: bar heavy black line marked thirty point two, as it
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: moves inward, is rotating about the low in a direction
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: contrary to the movement of the hands of a watch,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: and you have a very fair conception of an immense
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: atmospheric eddy. Have you ever watched the placid water of
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: a deep running brook and observed that where it encountered
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: a projecting crag, little eddy's formed and went spinning down
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: the stream. Well, our storms are some great eddies in
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the air which are carried along by the general easterly
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: movement of the atmosphere in the middle latitudes of the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Northern hemisphere. But they are not deep eddies, as was
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: once supposed. The low marks the center of an atmospheric
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: eddy a vast horizontal extent as compared with its thickness
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: or extension in a vertical direction. Thus a storm condition
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: extends from Washington to Denver in a horizontal direction, and
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: yet extends upward but four or five miles. The whole
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: disk of whirling air four or five miles thick and
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: fifteen hundred miles in diameter is called a cyclone or
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: a cyclonic system. It is important that a proper conception
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: of this fundamental idea be had, since the weather sequences
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: experienced from day to day depend almost wholly on the
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: movement of these traveling eddies, cyclones, or areas of low pressure.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: The large figures in the four corners of the cyclone
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: show the average temperature of each quadrant. The greatest difference
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: is between the south east and the northwest sections. This
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: is due in part to the fact that in the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: southeast quadrant the air is drawn northward from warmer latitudes,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: and in the northwest quadrant the air is drawn southward
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: from colder latitudes. The shaded area shows the region of
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: rain or snow fall during the preceding twelve hours. Unfortunately,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: for the science of forecasting, precipitation does not show that
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: relation to the configuration of the ISO bars that temperature,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: wind velocity, and wind direction do. Chart three, constructed from
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: observations taken twelve hours later, shows that the storm or
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: cyclonic center, as indicated by the word low has moved
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: from Central Iowa since eight a m. And is now
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: at eight p m Central over the southern point of
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Lake Michigan. The shaded areas show that precipitation has occurred
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: during the past twelve hours in nearly the entire region
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: covered by the cyclone. Chart four twelve hours later shows
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: that the precipitation has been general throughout the U s
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: entire area swept by the cyclonic whirl. Chart five is
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: quite dissimilar in the information it conveys to any other
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: of the charts accompanying this paper. From July twenty eighth
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: to August tenth, inclusive eighteen ninety six, there was a
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: remarkable hot wave in the United States, extending from the
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. The mortality from this
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: cause amounted to many thousands. The hottest region, as shown
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: by the dark shading, was in the middle Mississippi and
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Ohio valleys and the Lake region, where the temperature averaged
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: from six to nine degrees above the normal for each
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: one of the fourteen days during the same period. Strange
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: as it may seem, the temperature over the vast Rocky
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Mountain plateau was markedly below the normal, and the cold
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: was not due to altitude. For often we find these
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: conditions geographically reversed. The weather charts showing the movements of
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: highs and lows during the period of this abnormal heat
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: are not shown in this paper. Chart five is simply
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: into to show geographically the area and degree of the heat.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: For some unexplained reason, there come in summer periods of
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: almost absolute stagnation in the drift of the highs and lows.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: At such times, if a high rest over the southeastern
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: part of the country and a low over the northern
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Rocky Mountain region, there will result what is popularly known
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: as a warm wave. For the air, on account of
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: its slightly greater specific gravity, will slowly and steadily flow
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: from the south east, where the pressure is greater, toward
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: the northwest, where the pressure is less, and receiving constant
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: accretions of heat from the hot radiating surface of the Earth,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: without any rolls or eddies to mix, the upper and
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: lower strata will finally attain a temperature almost unbearable to
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: animal life. This superheated condition of the lower stratum in
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: which we live continues until the low pressure area in
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the northwest begins to actively gyrate as an eddy and
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: move eastward, mixing in its course strata up un equal
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: temperatures and precipitating the cool and welcome thundershowers. It is
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: a pertinent inquiry whether such adjacent areas of abnormal heat
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: and abnormal cold can possibly be due to cosmic influences.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: The only cosmic influences that meteorology is sure of are
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the radiation of heat from the Sun to the Earth
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: and the reception by space of the heat that is
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: radiated back by the Earth and atmosphere. In the long run,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: these two balance each other. It is inconceivable that solar
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: isolation passing outward from the Sun along true radial lines
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: could fall so unequally upon the United States as to
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: cause excessive heat on one side and extreme cold on
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: the other. It follows from the proceeding that we must
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: be slow to ascribe any of the local peculiarities that
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: are observed in terrestrial weather to cosmic influences. Whether variations irregular, annual,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: and diurnal, all probably have their causes in the Earth's
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: surface or in the u s the Earth's atmosphere, and
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: depend wholly on the mechanics of the latter. The problem, however,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: is so complex that it would be hazardous to undertake.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: To explain the great differences in temperature shown on this
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: map of departures for July and August eighteen ninety six,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: think of the atmosphere as a mass of air about
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: fifty miles deep, whose upper surface maintains nearly the same
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: configuration and temperature, and is almost entirely without motion relative
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: to the Earth's surface. The solar radiation and the terrestrial
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: radiation penetrate this upper region without appreciable absorption, and the
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: ascending and descending currents of air rarely or never disturb
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: this region, but cease before they reach it. Our weather
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: and climate depend on the changes going on in the
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: middle and lower atmospheres, and among these changes that which
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: affect our surface temperatures most is the motion of the atmosphere.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: The great contrast in temperature between two regions lying close together,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: as shown by Chart five, is therefore probably not due
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: to any special cosmic influence, but to the flow of air,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: as determined by the distribution of air pressure day by day.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Chart six shows the beginning of a cold wave in
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: the Northwest on the morning of January seventh eighteen eighty
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: six observed that the heavy black isobar passing through Montana
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: is marked thirty point eight, while the isobar curving through
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: southern Texas is marked twenty nine point eight, a difference
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: of one inch in the air pressure between Montana and Texas.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: The dotted isothermal line in Montana is marked thirty degrees
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: below zero, while the isotherm on the Texas coast indicates
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: a temperature of fifty degrees. Chart seven is auxiliary to
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Chart six, and by varying degrees of shading, shows the
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: fall of temperature during the preceding twenty four hours. Attendant
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: on the high pressure area of the Northwest. A considerable
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: area covered by the darkest shade indicates a fall of
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: forty degrees in temperature during the past twenty four hours.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: The people of the Gulf States, with a morning temperature
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: of forty to fifty degrees knew nothing of the great
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: volume of extremely cold air to the northwest of them.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: But from the distribution of air pressure son by Chart six,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: the forecaster anticipated that the very cold air of the
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Northwestern States would, on account of its great weight, be
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: forced southward to the Gulf and eastward to the Atlantic Ocean,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: or more accurately speaking, that the conditions causing the cold
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: in the northwest would drift southward and eastward. He therefore
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: issues the proper warning to the threatened districts. Now. Turn
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: to Charts eight and nine of the following morning, and
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: it will be seen from the latter that the cold
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: wave has covered the entire Mississippi Valley. The low, shown
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: on the preceding chart as being central in southern Texas
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: has moved northeastward to Alabama, and on chart eight appears
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: as a fully developed a storm. The difference in pressure
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: between the central is of bar of the low low
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: and the central io bar of the high is now
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: one point four inches. Precipitation has occurred, as shown by
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: the dark shading. Special attention is called to the large
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: figures placed in the four quarters of the low pressure area,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: about three hundred miles from the center. They indicate the
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: average temperatures of their respective quadrants, and strikingly illustrate how
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: great may be the difference in temperature under cyclonic influence
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: between regions separated by but short distances. It is certain
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: that as the low or cyclonic whirl moves toward the
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: northeast along the track usually followed by storms. In this locality,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: the cold of the northwest quadrant, by the action of
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: the horizontally whirling disk of air, will be thrown southeastward
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: toward Florida, lowering the temperature in the Orange Groves to
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: below the freezing point. Chart ten shows that the center
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: of the cyclone or low pressure system has moved during
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: the preceding twenty four hours northeast to the coast of
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: New Jersey with greatly increased energy, the barometer at the
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: centre showing the abnormally low reading of twenty eight point
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: seven inches. Cold northwest winds, as shown by the arrows,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: are now blowing systematically from the high pressure area of
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: the northwestern States southeast of Florida and the South Atlantic coast.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: The dotted isotherm of thirty degrees passes through the northern
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: part of Florida, where on the day before the temperature
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: was over fifty degrees. The cyclonic gyration of this storm
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: extends one thousand miles inland and probably to an equal
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: distance out to sea. Heavy snow or rain has fallen
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: throughout the area under its influence, seriously impeding railroad travel
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: and a gale of hurricane force has prevailed on the coast,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: but when on the day proceeding the storm was central
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: in Alabama, all these conditions were foreseen and the necessary
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: warnings issued. Chart eleven shows the temperature changes caused by
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: the rapid movement of the storm's center. Charts twelve and
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: thirteen show the conditions twenty four hours later, the storm's
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: center has been three days in passing from southern Texas
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: to the mouth of the Saint Lawrence. The temperature has
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: fallen still lower on the Atlantic coast and in Florida
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: as a result of uninterrupted northwest winds, and no material
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: rise in temperature can occur until the high pressure of
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: the northwest is replaced by a low pressure and convectional
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: currents are drawn toward the northwest instead of being forced
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: southward from that region. To summarize, in regard to cold waves,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: it may be said that when the charts indicate the
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: formation of a body of dense cold air in the northwest,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: as shown by the barometer readings, the skilled forecaster is
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: on the alert. He calls for special observations every four
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: hours from the stations within and directly in advance of
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: the cold area, and as soon as he becomes convinced
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: that the cold wave will sweep across the country with
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: its attendant damage to property, destruction to animal life, and
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: discomfort to humanity. The well arranged system of disseminating mornings
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: is brought into actae and by telegraph, telephone, flags, bulletins, maps,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: and other agencies. The people in every city, town and hamlet,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: and even in farming settlements are usually notified at the
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: advancing cold twelve to twenty four or perhaps even thirty
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: six hours before it reaches them. Charts fourteen and fifteen
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: show the cyclonic systems prevailing at eight pm on the
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: days of the Louisville and Saint Louis tornadoes. Several tornadoes
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: occurred on each day. Their tracks are shown by rows
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: of crosses in the southeast quadrants of each cyclone. Especially
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: do I wish to emphasize the distinction between the cyclonic
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: storm and the tornado. The press and nine out of
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: ten people who should no better use these terms as synonymous.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: The cyclone shown on Chart fourteen, which is fairly typical
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: of all cyclones, is a horizontally revolving disc of air
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: covering the whole United States from the Atlantic Ocean westward
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: II and including the Mississippi Valley, with the air currents
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: from all parts of glowing spirally inward towards the center.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: While the tornado is a revolving mass of air only
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: five hundred to one thousand yards in diameter and is
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: simply an incident of the cyclone, nearly always occurring in
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: its southeast quadrant, the cyclone may cause moderate or high
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: winds through a vast expanse of territory, while the tornado,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: with a ruttary motion almost unmeasurable, always leaves a trail
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: of death and destruction in an area infintesimal in comparison
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: to the area covered by the cyclone. The tornado is
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: the most violent of all storms, and is more frequent
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: in the central valleys of the United States than elsewhere.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: It has characteristics which distinguish it from the thunderstorm, viz.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: A pendant funnel shaped cloud and a violent rotary motion
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: in a direction contrary to the movements of the hands
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: of a watch, together with a violent updraft in the center.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: The three conditions essential to the formation of tornadoes are
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: clearly as follows. One a cyclone or area of low pressure,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: the center of winds is to the north or northwest,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: with a biometric pressure not necessarily much below the normal.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Two a temperature of about seventy degrees on the morning map,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: three a great humidity, and four that the time of
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: year be March fifteenth to June fifteenth. These conditions may
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: and often do exist separately. One or two of them
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: may be found coexisting, but so long as the third
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: is absent, tornadic formation is not likely to occur. I
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: am satisfied that the number of these storms is not increasing,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: that the breaking of the virgin soil, the planting or
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: cutting away of forests, the drainage of land surfaces by tiles,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: the stringing of thousands of miles of wire, or the
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: laying of iron or steel rails, have not materially altered
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: the climatic conditions or contributed to the frequency or intensity
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: of tornadoes. As well might one by the casting of
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: a pebble attempt to dam the mighty waters of the
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: majestic Mississippi, as attempt the modification or restriction by the
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: feeble efforts of man of the moose. Tremendous forces of
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: nature which surround our earth and control our storms in
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: climate to be sure, as towns become more numerous and
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: population becomes more dense, greater destruction will ensue from the
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: same number of storms. It is not possible, with our
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: present knowledge of the mechanism of storms to forewarn the
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: exact cities and towns that will be visited by tornadoes
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: without alarming some towns that will wholly escape injury. But
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: we know that tornadoes are almost entirely confined to the
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: southeastern quadrant of the cyclone, and that when the thermal, hygrometric,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: and other conditions are favorable, the spot three hundred five
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: hundred miles southeast from the cyclonic center is in the
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: greatest danger. Chart fifteen shows the conditions on the evening
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: of the Saint Louis tornado, two hours after its occurrence.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: The abnormal heat, humidity, and other conditions of the rather
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: small and weak cyclonic system shown by the morning chart
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: were sufficient to justify the Weather Bureau in distributing at
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: ten a m danger warnings throughout the whole of Missouri
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: and eastern Kansas. I AM informed that the schools of
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Saint Louis were dismissed at once on the receipt of
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: the warning. Forecast. What is urgently needed is a system
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: by which weather signals may be sent simultaneously from telephone
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: headquarters to all subscribers by a stroke of a telegraph key,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: that a whole city could be warned in a minute's time.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: The writer visited Saint Louis the day after the storm,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: and was especially impressed with the fact that hundreds of
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: buildings were burst outward at their upper stories, indicating that
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: they were, at the time of their destruction near the
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: center of the rotating massive air, where centrifugal force instantly
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: had reduced the air pressure on the outside to such
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: an extent that the expansion of the air and the
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: upper stories of the houses whose windows and doors were
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: closed had produced an explosion of the building. In one case,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: all the four walls of the upper story of a
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: house were thrown outward, leaving the lower story intact and
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: the rough resting improper position, one story lower than in
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: the air original building. Again, great structures seem to have
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: been crushed over or taken up bodily and scattered in
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: all directions. The fact that this tornado traveled with destructive
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: force through several miles of brick buildings, and yet left
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: the city with greater force than it possessed on entering.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: It illustrates the futility of planting force to the southwest
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: of a city for the purpose of protection. As some
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: have advocated, it is probable that the strongest trees would
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: offer but little more resistance to this terrific force than
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: would so many blades of grass. Whenever the forecast contains
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: the statement that conditions are favorable for severe local storms,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: it is well for the residents of a city receiving
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: such a forecast to observe carefully the formation of portentous
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: clouds and be ready to seek places of safety in
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: the cellars of frame buildings. We have no record of
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: any person having been killed in the cellar of a
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: frame building. Chart sixteen shows a West India hurricane just
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: making its advent on the Florida coast. A number of
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: stations in the West Indies report to Washington by cable
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: whenever hurricanes pass over their region. Sometimes a hurricane composed
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: of a rapidly revolving eddy of air of only two
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: or three hundred miles in diameter passes between the observation
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: stations on the islands of the West Indies without getting
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: near enough to effect their instruments. Then if it move
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: rapidly northwest toward our gulf coast, it may reach our
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: sea board unannounced. Fortunately, such cases are rare, and in
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: case the storm does reach any ports unexpectedly, danger signals
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: will be displayed in advance of its coming throughout the
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: remainder of its course until it leaves our shores. At times,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: hurricanes remain several days in the Gulf of Mexico and
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: the only indication we have of their proximity is a
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: strong suction drawing the air briskly over some of our
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: coast stations toward the center of the gulf. Again, a
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: heavy ocean swell may be caused by the friction of
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: the rapidly gyrating air on the surface of the water,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: and when the hurricane has a slow progressive movement, this
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: swell may be propagated outward from the center of the
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: storm faster than the storm is moving and reach the
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: coast several hours before either the barometer or the wind
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: movement gives any indication of the coming storm. The tracks
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: of West India hurricanes are always in the form of
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: a parabola. These storms come from the southeast, but on
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: reaching the latitude of our Gulf coast recurved to the
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: northeast along or off our coast line. An examination of
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: the auxiliary chart on the adjoining page shows that the
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: air pressure in the region of the storm has decreased
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: from point ten to point thirty of an inch during
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: the past twelve hours, and the little bars on the
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: arrows shown on Chart sixteen from Norfolk southward indicate that
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: the forecast official at Washington has ordered up the storm
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: signals in anticipation that the storm will move up the
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: coast and increase in energy. Chart eighteen twelve hours later
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: shows that his warnings were time, as the storm center
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: has moved slowly northward to Jacksonville with greatly increased energy.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: The barometer at the center reading twenty nine point one inches,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: which is abouto point nine of an inch under the
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: normal air pressure. The auxiliary chart shows that the air
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: pressure has decreased more rapidly during the past twelve hours
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: than during the similar period next proceeding. The most potent
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: force in accelerating the motion of the eddy or hurricane
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: was the vast amount of heat energy liberated by condensation
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: in the whirling mass. Danger signals have been carried northward
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: to Norfolk, and ports north of the storm center have
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: been warned that the dangerous winds will come from the northeast.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: I wish to make plain that the storm coming from
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: the southwest causes northeast winds to flow in at its
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: front on the Georgia and Florida coast. The signals have
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: indicated that the wind will blow from the northwest for
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: a few hours as the air whirls in behind the
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: receding storm center. It will now be seen how it
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: is possible for storms to progress against the wind. In thunderstorms,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: this rule does not hold, as there is a horizontal
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: rolling of the atmosphere caused by cold and heavy air
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: from above breaking through into a light and superheated stratum
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: next to the earth. This rolling motion throws forward the
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: cool air in the direction which the cloud is moving.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: Chart twenty shows a slight aberration in the northeast course
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: of the storm, which places the center inland, so that
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: the whole eddy can be charted. West India hurricanes are
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: cyclonic in character, but on account of the fact that
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: the diameter of the rolling EDDY is much less and
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: the velocity of rotation much greater, than in the average cyclone,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: it is customary to designate them as hurricanes. In other words,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: the hurricane is a cyclone of small area, but of
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: powerful fortical action and consequently of great destructive force. To
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: get a rough idea of the difference between storms, we
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: might classify them according to the diameter of the revolving
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: mass of air under their influence, as follows cyclones one
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: thousand to two thousand miles, hurricanes two hundred to five
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: hundred miles, and tornadoes one half mile to one mile. Then,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: if a great quantity of heat energy is liberated by
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: profuse condensation of aqueous vapor near the storm centers, we
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: might imagine their vertical action and their destructive force to
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: increase as their diameters of rotation decreased. Charts twenty two
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: twenty five show the progress in twelve hour intervals of
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: the hurricane northeastward to New England. It will probably leave
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: the American continent at Nova Scotia, and in three or
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: four days cross the Atlantic and make its appearance on
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: the northwest coast of Europe. Twenty five years ago, mariners
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: depended on their own weather lore to warn them of
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: coming storms. Then, although the number of boats plying the
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: seas was much less than it is now. Every severe
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: storm that swept across them left death and destruction in
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: its wake, and for days afterward, the dead were cast
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: up by these subsiding waters, and the shores were lined
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: with wreckage. Happily, this is not now the case. The
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: angry waters and the howling winds vent their fury the
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: one upon the other, while the great mass of shipping
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: so long the prey of the winds and waves rides
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: safely at anchor in convenient harbors. The United States has
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: the most extensive weather service in the world, and its
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: enormous practical utility is now universally recognized. Careful estimates based
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: on reports from interested parties indicate that cold wave signals
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: effectively displayed in advance of one severe cold wave sweeping
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: across our country result in a saving of over three
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: point five million dollars, while responsible marine representatives declare that
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: each West India hurricane passing up the Atlantic Sea board
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: would destroy not less than two million dollars worth of
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: property and many lives if danger signals were not displayed
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: well in advance of its coming. End of Section two.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: Section three of the National Geographic Magazine, Volume eight March
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: eighteen ninety seven. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Rubber Forests of
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Nicaragua and Sierra Leone by General A. W. Greeley, Chief
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Signal Officer, United States Army. The increasing commercial demands for
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: raw rubber and the steady diminution of kautchuk produced by
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: existing rubber forests give special interest to any information bearing
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: on future supplies of kautchuk, pending the discovery of compounds
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: that shall supplant it. In eighteen ninety two, the Department
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: of State published a Special consul of Report on Rubber
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: and rubber Manufactures, which has lately been supplemented by additional information.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: The India rubber trees, of which there are several profitable varieties,
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: will produced annually from ten to forty pounds of kautchuk
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: for many years if they are at tapped judiciously. It is, however,
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: an almost universal complaint from Africa, America and Asia that
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: the greed and carelessness of the native collectors who seek
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: to obtain the greatest immediate quantity by the least laborious
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: methods are rapidly destroying the rubber bearing plants. Trees are
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: either felled or so deeply and roughly in sized as
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: to speedily dye the fresh rubber juice, resembling cream in
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: color and consistency, has an ammoniacal odor, which rapidly disappears,
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: leaving the kaoutchuk odorless and tasteless. Trees yield the milk
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: copiously for several months each year, and the covaculated rubber
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: averages about thirty percent of the original juice two pounds
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: of koutchuk to the gallon. Brazil is the principal source
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: of raw rubber, and that from Para is the best.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: In eighteen ninety the receipts of kautchuk at Para reached sixteen,
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: five hundred and seventy tons. According to the report of
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: Consul j. O. Kirby, whose account of rubber gathering may
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: be of interest. The rubber gatherer rolls out of his
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: hammock as soon as it is light in the morning,
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: and takes his gulbo of rum and his calabash of
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: coffee and starts out to visit his rubber trees. He
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: wears a short pair of breeches and sometimes a shirt.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: He goes barefoot, for he must wade through the swamp
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: mud and ooze of the tide up to his knees
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: and often up to his waist in water. He takes
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: a basketful of earthenware gill cups, a hunk of adiese
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: of clay, and a little narrow bladed hatchet. If he
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: adopts the most approved method of tapping the trees, he
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: reaches as high as he can with his hatchet, making
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: an incision in the bark, but not reaching through to
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: the wood. The milk immediately begins to issue in rapid
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: drops or little streams with the spat of the adhesive clay.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: He immediately fastens one of his little gill clay cups
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: just below the bleeding gash, and molds the clay so
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: as to make all the rubber milk flow into the cup.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: Three such gashes, at equal distances around the tree and
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: at equal height is the rule. The next day he
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: will make three more gashes in the same way, just
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: a little below these three, and so continue until by
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: the end of the season he will have reached the
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: level of the ground. Each of his one hundred or
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty trees is treated in the same way,
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: and he returns home after having traveled from three to
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: five miles barefoot and almost naked, through thorny thicket and
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: malarial steaming swamp. When he reaches his hut, he again
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: takes another gulp from the demijohn, snatches a breakfast of
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: salt fish and mandioca meal, which are often moldy from
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: the reeking damp of the swamp, and then he starts
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: out again with his calabash buckets to gather the milk,
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: which by this time has ceased to flow. His gill
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: cups are full or nearly so, and when he reaches
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: home he has milk enough to make four kilos of
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: rubber on an average. The next task the coagulation of
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: the milk. For this purpose he has a jug shaped
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: furnace made of earthenware called a boyow, open at bottom
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: and top, and with a small aperture at the side
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: to admit the air for the combustion. In this piece
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: of furniture, he builds a fire, or rather a smudge
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: with the nuts of the inija or urucurry pan The
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: dense black smoke which rolls from the open top of
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: the boyow is the reagent which coagulates the milk. For
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: this purpose, the rubber gatherer has a circular bladed paddle,
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: like the paddle of a canoe, which he smears over
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: with clay so that the rubber will not adhere to it.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: This is suspended by means of a cord from the
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: limb of a tree just above the smudge. The milk
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: is poured over the blade of the paddle, which is
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: then turned over and around about in the smoke, and
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: in a few moments the film of rubber is coagulated.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: The same process is repeated of wetting with milk and
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: smoking the growing lump until it reaches the weight of
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: from five to twenty five kilos or more. Then it
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: has slipped off from the paddle as a mitten is
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: pulled off from one's hand. This ball is the crude rubber.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: Rubber prospects in Nicaragua. A lative report from Consul J.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: Crawfords contains the following information. Recently, many persons in western
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: Nicaragua have declared their intention to plant and cultivate elastic rubber,
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: yielding some varieties of the Juno are but slightly elastic
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: trees and vines in the eastern part of the state.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: Such a states are locally named Athienda de ule. These
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: persons are acquiring concerning the localities having the most suitable
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: lands and climate, the species and varieties of trees and
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: vines that annually or biennally yield the largest quantity of
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: good rubber, the proper distance apart for planting the trees
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: and vines, the best modes of cultivation, and how many
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: years must elapse before it is proper to commence the
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: annual or biennial collection of rubber, et cetera. Many of
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: the valleys in central and northeastern Nicaragua contain all the
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: natural conditions for a full yield of an excellent quality
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: of elastic rubber. They are localities supporting numerous groves of
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: large sized trees yielding rubber until about fifteen years ago,
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: when nearly all the trees had been killed by two
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: severe scarifying by irresponsible collectors. Locality in Nicaragua south of
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: latitude fifteen degrees north and in low valleys where the
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: soil is alluvial or vegetable hummus and sand capable of
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: being rapidly drained and in a climate that is uniformly
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: warm and humid. Suit the largest rubber yielding varieties of
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: trees and vines. Some varieties giving an excellent quality of
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: very elastic rubber are indigenous to a higher drier climate
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: and soil. There are several of the natural orders Urgicasia, Sapotasia, morasciae, Apossinasia,
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: Euphorbiassia indigenous in Nicarago, which which when scarified deeply exude
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: a milk like sap from which rubber of various degrees
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: of elasticity is separated. The annual quantity and the quality
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: in elasticity differ, usually with the species and with different
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: conditioned localities. Some prefer the low alluvial lands under a
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: humid atmosphere, while other varieties flourish best in a more elevated,
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: sandy and decomposed vegetable matter lands rich in potash, as
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: the volcanic valley districts south of Lake Nicaragua. The most
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: desirable varieties for quantity per annum and quality of rubber
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: are the Siphonia elastica and Castilloa elastica, inhabitants of well drained,
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: low alluvial valleys kept warm by a humid atmosphere. The
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: second best rubber producers are of the Ficus family, a
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: variety locally known as matapala. An epiphyte having numerous bodies
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: from aerial roots. Like the banyan tree, it is also
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: an inhabitant of low furtile, well drained lands. By cultivation,
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: this tree would probably equal the other low valley varieties
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: in quality and annual output of rubber. It has the
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: advantage that if one of its trunks is deadened by
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: excessive drainage of the sap, it has several other live
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: trunks from which to obtain supplies of rubber. Another good
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: variety is the Manni hot ballano, locally known as the
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: arbodevaca cow milk tree, a large, hardy indigenous kind found
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: at altitudes of one thousand to two thousand feet above
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: the ocean. The annual yield of elastic material depends on
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: the bulk of the bast or lactiferous tissues that exist
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: or that can be developed. Some trees of two or
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: three feet diameter and thirty five to fifty feet tall
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: will give annually twenty to forty pounds of good rubber.
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: The quality of rubber depends largely upon the form of
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: the cells composing the bast and in part the process
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: used to separate the elastic material from the emulsion. Like
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: sap quality and nave quantity are responsive to cultivation. According
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: to very recent reports from Nicaragua, the leaves yield up
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: purer juice and more copiously than the bast. If this
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: proves true, the supply of rubber can be largely increased
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: without permanent injury to the tree. The shoots should be
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: transplanted to a nursery when one year old, and thence
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: removed to their permanent place when three years of age.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: In rows, say sixty four Matapala, eighty one Siphonia and
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: one hundred Castilloa trees per acre. Cultivation consists in ditching
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: the land so as to drain it at will, keeping
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: it moist without permitting water to stand still, keep all
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: under rows cut down, and the land held up around
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: the trees. Fill other varieties of trees and vines until
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: they shade. But a very small part of the land
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: commenced during the sixth or seventh year to collect rubber
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: by small area incisions through the bast, taking If the
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: trees have matured properly eight to twelve pounds of rubber
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: from each tree biennale, but after the tree is twelve
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: years of age, a sufficient quantity of SAP could be
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: annually extracted to yield ten to fifteen pounds of good
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: elastic rubber. The two following modes of incision are preferable
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: to other processes. One cut with a curved sharp instrument
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: channels through the lactiferous tissue, similar to those made in
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: behind trees and turpentine orchards in the United States. Two
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: drive tubes cut from the internos of bamboo abundant in
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: Nicaragua through the bast first making a slanting cut of
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: a part of the circumference of the tube, and drive
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: the sharpened end one and a half to two inches
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: long into the tree. Then, when the collecting season is passed,
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: plug up the tubes of that season with wood that
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: has been dipped in some liquid insecticide, and saw off
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: the tube and its wooden core. Even with the thin
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: exterior bark of the tree, the coagulation of the milk
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: like exudation and the separation from it of the elastic
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: material can be affected by heating to one hundred sixty
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: seven to one hundred and seventy five degrees fahrenheit and
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: stirring in a hot decoction of some species of Convulvulacea
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: as morning glory, or stirring into the emulsion when fresh
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: and hot the smoke from burning palm or other oleagenous nuts,
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: which are abundant in rubber yielding districts. Secondary crops planted
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: between the rows of rubber producing trees could be the
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: liberia coffee tree, bananas, or such fibrous plants as hennequin
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: sisal et cetera of the agave family. Also the vanilla
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: bean one vine to each rubber tree, which would yield
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: an annual crop equal in value to the rubber product.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: While the vanilla vine needs trees of this class for sustenance,
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: yet it is probable that the vanilla would not materially
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: reduce the flow of SAP or the quantity of elastic
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: material from the tree. A comparative estimate of the annual
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: value per acre and nicaragua of coffee trees and rubber
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: trees at nine years of age and thereafter at present
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: eighteen ninety six prices gives one hundred and ninety two
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: dollars net profit from an acre in rubber trees rubber
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: forests of Sierra Leone. The following information concerning the undeveloped
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: rubber forests of Sierra Leone is drawn from the address
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: of His Excellency, Colonel Cardu to the Legislative Council of
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: Sierra Leone on his journeys aggregating one thousand, three hundred
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: miles in the hinterland and Protectorate of Sierra Leone in
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: eighteen ninety four to ninety five. There are large forests
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: with abundant rubber waiting exploitation by intelligent and systematic methods
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: and that will yield wealth to the first enterprising comer.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: An extensive rubber forest lies between Macali and Cruto, covering
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: the greater part of the district between the Seli and
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: Bagui rivers. This area comprises portions of the Kuniki and
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: Koranco districts, and the extent of the rubber forests is
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: estimated at six hundred square miles. The portion of the
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: forest scene is composed of rubber trees about ten years old,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: called kawatia. These trees grow rapidly and in ten years
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: attain a girth of two or three feet, but under
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: present methods they are felled by the rubber gatherer. Two vines,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: the nofe and the lillibou yield rubber, the latter of
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: the choicest quality. The nofe is invariably cut up and
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: destroyed for its rubber, and the lilliboo generally so. The
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: native processes of rubber gathering are crude and wasteful in
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: the extreme. If intelligent and economical methods were adopted, there
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: would be far greater yields than formerly and the West
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: African rubber would command a higher price. Unless better methods
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: of extracting rubber are introduced, it is safe to predict
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: that under the increasing demand for rubber, one of the
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: most thriving industries of Sierra Leone will be ruined by
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: the extinction of the plants. At present for the purpose
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: of extracting a few pounds of rubber, large trees are
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: totally destroyed. The forest in the Kuniki and Puranco districts
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: are quite accessible, it being about seven days march to Macali,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: where the woods are entered. Water carriage for light canoes
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: is possible down the Rocal River from Venkia two marches
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: from Macali. These forests, however, are small compared to those
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: on the Anglo Liberian frontier along the Morrow and Mano rivers,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: which extend nearly one thousand miles. The exploitation of these
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: forests has been impracticable for the last twenty years owing
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: to border raids, but under present conditions of peacefulness, it
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: is now possible to open up these forests, which abound
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: in rubber and elephants, and the southern portions of which
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: are within two days journey of Sulina. A protectorate will
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: shortly be proclaimed over the British sphere of influence in
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: the interior, and under the proposed arrangement of five districts,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: each to be under a competent commissioner. It is hoped
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: that there will be a rapid development of the interior,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: especially in the way of opening up communications and fostering trade.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: End of Section three, Section four of the National Geographic Magazine,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: Volume eight, March eighteen ninety seven. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: by Phil shamf recent Explorations and Equatorial Africa by Ernest
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: de Sassavel footnote. In studying the geography of the Dark Continent,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: it should be borne in mind that, owing to the
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: interchangeability of the letters R, L and D in many
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: of the African dialects, and to the fact that the
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: explorers of various nationalities have applied to the names of
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: different tribes and geographic features of the regions they have visited,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: the orthographic forms peculiar to their own length wages. The
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: geographic nomenclature, even of such portions of the interior as
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: are now mapped in more or less detail, is far
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: from being definitely established. In some cases the variation in
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: spelling is so great as almost to preclude identification. And
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: not even in the case of names of European origin,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: is there that uniformity of orthography which is so much
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: to be desired. JH. End A footnote. Africa's fast losing
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: its title of the Dark Continent, and if explorations continue
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: at their recent rate for a few years longer, it
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: will be as well known as other parts of the globe.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: Three young men recently crossed it from east to west,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: following in the main the routes taken by Stanley, and
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: correcting a few of the slight mistakes made by that
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: explorer as the result probably of his rapid marching. These
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: travelers were Monsieur Maurice Dersapei, who has since died of fever,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: the Baron de Roman, and Monsieur Sporek, an artist, accompanied
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: by an escort of twenty riflemen and one hundred thirty carriers.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: Engaged at Zanzibar, they secured a large collection of weapons
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: from different tribes, of indigenous seeds, flowers and timber, of
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: skins of various mammalia, also a live leopard, and a
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: large number of photographs and of watercolor and other drawings.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: They traveled four thousand kilometers on foot and two thousand
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: by boat, and their very complete itinerary of their travels
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: contains much interesting geographical information. The explorers left Zanzibar on
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: July sixth, eighteen ninety five, sailing thence from Mombasa, thence.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: They crossed a barren, rocky country and reached Lake Gepei,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: where they hunted a while. They ascended the slope of
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: the Kilimanjaro to the the German post of moshi At,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: an elevation of twelve hundred meters. The Kilimanjaro is an
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: imposing mass, nearly six thousand meters high and covered with
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: eternal snows. The confluence of the rivers Tsavo and Usi
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: was located, and the party crossed to the north of Kilimanjaro,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: a volcanic country entirely uninhabited and passed by Lake and Giri.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: Taking an entirely new route, they made for the English
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: post of Kikuyu, across the plains of Kaptae, where they
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: successfully hunted elephants, rhinoceroses, zebras and antelope. These plains were
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: entirely devoid of vegetation and their rivers were dried up.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: Kikuyu was reached in November, at which time the Masai
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: were an open rebellion. This brave and fearless tribe is
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: known and feared from the Kenya to German East Africa.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: They are tall and well built, are mostly naked, where
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: their hair long, and smear their faces and shoulders with
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: grease and red clay. They wear war feathers about the
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: head and carry spears and shields. But while warlike and nomadic,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: they raised some cattle. It was at this time that
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: an English caravan composed of twelve hundred Waki kabus was
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: attacked by the Massai, who killed seven hundred of them.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: A scotchman named Dick, who was traveling with another caravan,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: left Kikuyu the day before the three French travelers, but
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: hearing of the massacre, he fell back and sent a
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: letter to kuku U for assistance, which was refused. The
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: frenchmen joined forces with him, and they were furiously attacked
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: by the Massai in the Kaidung Valley. The attack was repelled,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: but Dick was killed. Leaving the Kaidung Valley, the party
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: passed to the east of the small lakes Naivasha, Nakoura
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: and el mete Ita, and on December five reached the
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: English fort of Ravine. The next day they crossed the
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: deep ravine of the Eldoma River, past the Mann Foothills
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: in the country of the Janandies, across the north of
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: the Kaviiranda country to the Zoea River, from the banks
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: of which the Victoria Nyanza can be seen. The Usaga,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: a rich and thickly inhabited country, was next passed, and
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: the Nile was reached The Ripon falls, about eight hundred
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: meters wide and ten meters high, were greatly admired. Crossing
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: the Bay of Napoleon brought the travelers to Ugonda, where
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: the natives are sufficiently civilized to have built roads and bridges.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: Their capital is Mngo, which the travelers left on February
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: twenty two, eighteen ninety six. Passing by Lake Mitiana, which
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: is more of a swamp than a lake, Lake Ruheran
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: was reached. It lies to the northeast of Lake Albert Edward,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: which is itself to the southwest of Mount ruin Zori.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: According to Stanley, there is a high peak, which he
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: named Gordon Bennett, to the north of this lake, but
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: the travelers were unable to discover it. Mount run Zori
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: is about five thousand meters high, and at night numerous
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: lights were seen on its slopes. On April eleven, the
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: explorers were at Kasagama, whence they started for Katone, to
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: the north of Lake Albert Edward and on the front
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: tier between British Territory and the Congo Free State. During
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: this march, they noticed that Lake ruhern is not connected
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: with Lake Albert Edward by a large bay as Stanley says,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: but by a small stream. The two lakes are forty
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: kilometers apart and have a difference of two hundred meters
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: in elevation. On April seventeen, Katone was left behind. The
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: thirtieth meridian was crossed, and the caravan camped right under
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: the equator for the third time since leaving Mobasa. Continuing westward,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: they entered the Congo Free State and crossed the foothills
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: of the ruin Zori, visited by Captain Blueguard a few
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: years ago, and entered the Semliki Valley. The Semliki River
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: is about two hundred meters wide and has a very
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: swift current. The next halt was made at the village
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: of Mabene, where Stokes was captured. From this place to Leopoldville,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: the country is covered with an almost impenetrable forest, on
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: the edge of which is the Arab village of Kisangui,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: an auxiliary post of the Congo State. It is the
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: duty of the chief of the village to warn the
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: Congolese authorities of the presence of strangers on their territory.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: After a ten days march through the forest, kuam Kubi
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: was reached in this part of the country, traces of
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: Arabs civilization are everywhere apparent. These Arabs speak the Zanzibar dialect.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: Leaving this post, the Congo Basin was next entered. The
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: march through the forest was exceedingly difficult, compass, an axe
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: being alike indispensable. Finally, the Ebina, a branch of the
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: Turi river, was reached. Twenty days more along the banks
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: of the Ibina brought the travelers to the Etui itself,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: which they crossed in canoes, and then took a guide
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: who conducted them to the Congolese military post of Kilonga Longa.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: They were well received by the Belgian officers, the first
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: Europeans they had met for several weeks, and after a
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: short rest and the laying in of supplies, they left
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: for the next post. Recrossing the Eturi, they followed its
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: left bank as far as Mausa, a small village opposite
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: the mouth of the Ipula. Here the Etui is swift
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: and narrow. Eight days more through the forest brought the
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: travelers to Avakubi, where for the fourth time the Eturi
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: had to be crossed. Abakubi is a post and market
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: of some importance. Here the travelers saw a few specimens
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: of the race of pygmies, whose existence has by many
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: writers been doubted. The stature of these pigmies is about
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: one meter twenty. They are absolutely naked, their noses are
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: very flat, and their looks somewhat ferocious. Their weapons are
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: spears and arrows, which are proportionate to their stature. They
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: hunt a great deal and attack even the elephant. They
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: build no huts, but live scattered about the forest, and
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: their habitations are holes. Their suspicious nature renders them very
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: difficult to meet, and it is only once in a
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: while that a few of the least wild among them
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: venture to go to the nearest post to exchange the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: products of their hunt for bananas or sweet potatoes. From Avakubi,
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: the travelers proceeded in canoes as far as Stanley Falls.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: Here they embarked on a small steamboat and ascended the Congo,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: which at Bamba has a width of thirty kilometers. On
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: August third, they sailed for Europe, and Monsieur Versapey died
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: shortly after his return to France. Ernurst de Sassville, Paris,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: January twenty two, eighteen ninety seven. End of Section four.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: Section five of the National Geographic Magazine, Volume eight March
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: eighteen ninety seven. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Betty B.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: Geographic Literature. Laboratory Practice for Beginners in Botany by William A. Setchel, PhD,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: Professor of Botany in the University of California, Pages Roman
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 4: Numeral fourteen plus one hundred ninety nine, New York, The
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: McMillan Company, eighteen ninety seven. Ninety cents that school instruction
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: in botany is emerging from the diletantism and dry terminologyism
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: of manuals on the one hand, and the proud but
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 4: narrow microscopism of the usual laboratory guides on the other,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: is evidenced by the appearance of Professor Setchel's Laboratory Practice
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: for Beginners and Botany. It is a book in which
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: technical names for the parts of plants and machinery for
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: handling and examining specimens are given a subordinate place, while
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: the gross structure of plants is examined, with the question
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: constantly in mind, how does the plant make use of
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 4: the organs, and in what way are the modifications in
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: different plants adapted to their special requirements. The book contains
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: sixteen chapters on the anatomy of seeds, seedlings, roots, stems, leaves, buds, flowers,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 4: inflorescence and fruits, and interspersed chapters on protective structures, storage
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: of food, climbing and insectivorous plants, vegetative reproduction, pollination, seed dispersion,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: and other similar subjects. The book cannot fail to go
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: a long way toward placing the student, and we may
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: add the teacher also in the attitude of keenly observing
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: the relation of structure to function, a kind of observation
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 4: in which Charles Darwin and Sir John Lubbock have been
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 4: our chief masters, and which will ultimately give the science
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 4: of botany the acute scientific interest and real educational value
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: in secondary schools to which it is so well adapted
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 4: and so fully entitled. FVC An Introduction to Geology by W. B.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: Scott Blair, Professor of Geology and Paleontology in Princeton University,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 4: pages Roman Numeral twenty seven plus five hundred seventy three,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 4: with numerous illustrations, New York, the McMillan Company, eighteen ninety
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 4: seven A dollar ninety students and teachers are to be
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 4: congratulated on the appearing of another elementary work on geology.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 4: As explained by the author, the treatise had its origin
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 4: in the attempt to write an introductory work dealing principally
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 4: with American geology, upon the lines of Sir Archibald Geyke's
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 4: excellent Little class Book. The book is intended to serve
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: as an introduction to the science of geology, both for
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: students who desire to pursue the subject exhaustively and also
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 4: for the much larger class of those who wish merely
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 4: to obtain an outline of the methods and principal results
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 4: of the science. The content suggests that the treatise is
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 4: an expansion of Professor Scott's lectures on geology in Princeton University.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 4: The book has the attractive air due to the excellent editing,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 4: claire typography and photo mechanical illustrating adopted of late by
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 4: the McMillan Company. In matter, it is eminently conventional and
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 4: in manner of presentation thoroughly conscientious. It must appeal strongly
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: to the honest student of earthmaking. In general, the author
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 4: is abstracted and condensed in admirable fashion the substance of
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 4: the geologic literature of the last quarter century. Thus there
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: is nothing of the sensational, and except in vertebrate paleontology,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 4: little of the novel between title page and index. Perhaps
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 4: the chief weakness of the work, if weakness it can
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: be called, grows out of the author's desire to avoid
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 4: extremes on mooted points. Both or all sides are stated
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 4: judicially in this even when one interpretation is old or
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 4: speculative and the other new or more directly observational, so
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 4: that many of the chapters smack of classroom rather than field.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 4: An example will suffice in discussing the distribution of earthquakes.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 4: It is noted that the great earthquakes which shook the
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 4: Mississippi Valley in eighteen eleven to eighteen twelve are among
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 4: the very few instances of violent and long continued shocks
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: in a region far from any volcano, and the obsolete
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 4: Humboldtian notion of connection with West Indian volcanoes is quoted approvingly.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 4: While the notable shocks that have devastated both sides of
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 4: the Indian Peninsula far from volcano. Though about the depositing
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 4: grounds of Great Rivers and even our own Charleston earthquake, which,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 4: through the studies of Dutton, through more light on seismism
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: than any other recorded in history, are ignored. It is
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 4: chiefly on the dynamic side, or the side of agency,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 4: that the old and the new are thus confused. On
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 4: the descriptive side, the chapters are generally up to date,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 4: while in paleontology, especially in connection with vertebrate fossils, the
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 4: work stands in the van of modern knowledge. On this
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 4: ground alone, it will be invaluable to both classes for
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 4: whom it is designed, since it is the first general
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 4: work to really vivify fossil skeletons and to compel readers
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 4: to conceive them as of living things. The main divisions
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 4: are one dynamical geology, two structural geology, three physiographical geology,
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 4: and four historical geology. The classification is one of the
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 4: conventional features, suggesting that the author's platform is built of
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 4: planks carefully selected from platforms of a dozen predecessors to
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 4: escape consequent difficulties. And excellent introduction with the chapter on
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 4: rock forming minerals is prefixed, a useful classification of animals
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 4: and plants is appended, and the value of the book
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 4: is multiplied by an excellent index. As is usual in
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 4: recent works, the author has drawn freely on the common
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 4: stock of current knowledge and gives credit to a score
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 4: of contemporary geologists. W. J. M end Of Section five,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 4: Section six of the National Geographic Magazine, Volume eight, March
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 4: eighteen ninety seven. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 4: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Betty B.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 4: Geographic Serials. In the Journal of School Geography, we welcome
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 4: a new periodical in the field of geographic literature. This journal,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 4: which is addressed particularly to teachers, is edited by mister R. E. Dodge,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 4: Associate Professor of Natural Science in the Teachers College, New York,
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 4: with as associate's Professor. W. M. Davis of Harvard. C. W.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: Hayes of the US Geological Survey. H. B. Cummel of
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 4: the Lewis Institute, Chicago. F. M. McMurray, Dean of the
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 4: School of Pedagogy, University of Buffalo, Buffalo, New York and R.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 4: De c Ward of Harvard. Ten numbers will be published
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 4: a year price one dollar or fifteen cents. A number.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 4: Two numbers have thus far been issued, the leading contents
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 4: of which are as follows in the January number Home
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 4: Geography by W. M. Davis, Some Things about Africa by
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 4: Cyrus C. Adams, Geographic Instruction in Germany by W. S. Monroe,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 4: Some Suggestions regarding Geography and grade Schools by R. E. Dodge.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 4: The February number contains the following articles. The influence of
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 4: the Appalachian Barrier upon colonial History by Ellen C. Semple.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 4: It appears to us that miss Semple exaggerates the influence
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 4: of this geographic feature in delaying the settlement of the
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 4: interior of the country. Meteorological Observations in Schools by Robert
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 4: de c Ward, The Causal Notion in Geography by F. M. McMurray.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 4: Geographic Aids by R. E. Dodge. This is a much
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 4: needed publication and we welcome it with the prediction that
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 4: it will be successful. Another periodical of somewhat similar character,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 4: which has just been added to our list of exchanges
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 4: is The Inland Educator, edited by Francis M. Stalker and
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 4: Charles M. Curry and published at Terre Haute, Indiana, price
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 4: one dollar a year monthly. The opening article of the
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 4: February number, which lies before us, is entitled The New Geography,
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 4: written by Professor Charles R. Dryer. From time immemorial, the
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 4: teaching of geography in the schools has consisted in memorizing
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 4: isolated facts regarding the Earth, its products, and inhabitants, with
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 4: little attempt to show relations. It is only in recent
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 4: years that educators have become dissatisfied with this condition of things.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 4: And it is only in recent years moreover, that geography
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 4: has advanced from what might be termed an art to
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 4: the dignity of a science, i e. That it has
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 4: become recognized that the class of facts grouped under the
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 4: name of geography have causal relations among themselves. The unrest
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 4: among educators regarding the teaching of geography, which at first
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 4: was merely aimless dissatisfaction with existing methods, is gradually leading
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 4: toward definite lines of improvement. Gradually, teachers are learning that
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 4: geography is a logical science and must be taught as such,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 4: and the textbooks are beginning to adapt themselves to this view.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: The introduction of physiography into text books is but one
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 4: step in this direction. Physiography explains the origin of relief
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 4: and drainage forms, and when to this are added the
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 4: relations between the Earth's surface and its climate on the
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 4: one hand, and the distribution of life and of man's
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 4: industries and products on the other, In our textbooks the
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 4: improvement will be a well rounded one. Then geography in
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 4: its broad sense can be taught as a science. These
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 4: are some of the ideas which are brought out in
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 4: Professor Dryer's admirable article. Other articles in the Inland Educator
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 4: relate especially to other branches of education and require no
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: special mention here. The Geographical Journal for February seems to
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 4: be especially devoted to African exploration. It opens with a
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 4: journey in the Maratzi and mash Columbowie countries by Captain A.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 4: Saint H. Gibbons. Other articles are a Journey up the
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 4: Makaelai by Percy c Reid, from the Mkaelai to Leaalui
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 4: by Captain Alfred bertrand notes on a journey around Mount
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 4: Massowah by C. W. Hobley. Concerning Asia, there are explorations
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 4: in Mysia by J. R. Monroe and H. M. Anthony,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 4: Journey of Captain Welby and Lieutenant Malcolm across Tibec and
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 4: Captain Deasey's Journey in Western Tibet. Mister J. Barthel Harris
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 4: contributes an article entitled the supposed Discovery of South America
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 4: before fourteen forty eight and the critical methods of the
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 4: Historians of Geographical Discovery. The Scottish Geographical Magazine for February
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 4: contains an account of recent explorations in the Patagonian Andes
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 4: south of forty one degrees south latitude by doctor Hans
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 4: Stephen and notes upon the geography of the Argentine Republic
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 4: by H. D. Hoskold, Director General of the National Department
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 4: of Mines in Geology, Buenos Aires, eight end of section six,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 4: Section seven of the National Geographic Magazine, Volume eight, March
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 4: eighteen ninety seven. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 4: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 4: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Betty B.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 4: Geographic Notes Central America, Nicaragua. Concessions have been granted to
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 4: United States citizens for a street railway to be operated
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 4: by steam between the town of blue Fields and the
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 4: blue Fields custom House situated at the mouth of the harbor,
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 4: and also for a railway between Rama and San Ubaldo.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 4: The United States consul, however, makes the significant statement that
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 4: so little has ever been done in Nicaragua under any
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 4: government concessions or little, that it seems a waste of
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 4: time to enter into the details of any concession without
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 4: positive proof that it is to be pushed. A contract
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 4: has been let for the construction of a canal to
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 4: connect Pearl and blue Fields Lagoons, which will afford an
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 4: inside channel with a depth of four point five feet
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 4: for a distance of fifty five miles north of blue Fields.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 4: Europe Russia. On September thirteenth, the total length of railways
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 4: and operation in Russia was thirty six thousand, eight hundred
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 4: sixty one versts, or about twenty four thousand, four hundred miles.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 4: Of these lines, twenty one thousand, one hundred fifty eight
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 4: versts were operated by the government. The development of the
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 4: mineral and manufacturing industries of Russia is progressing with astonishing rapidity.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 4: The production of coal has trebled in the last fifteen years,
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 4: and the progress in the textile industries is marvelous. The Empire, however,
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 4: is still largely dependent upon other countries for its machinery
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 4: and upon foreigners for the more responsible positions in its
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 4: factories and ironworks. There has been an enormous increase in
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 4: the shipping industry of the Caspian Sea, owing to the
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 4: development of the oil wells of Baku, one of which
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 4: recently discharged three hundred thousand tons of oil valued at
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 4: seven hundred fifty thousand dollars within a period of two months.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 4: Several of the Russian railways and most of the steamship
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 4: companies on the Volga, as well as the manufacturing centers
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 4: along that great waterway, are using oil for fuel. Asia Siberia,
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 4: by consent of the Russian authorities, the peninsula discovered by
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 4: doctor Nansen is to be named for King Oscar of Sweden.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 4: Over two hundred thousand Russian peasants migrated to Siberia in
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 4: eighteen ninety six, but some twenty five five thousand were
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 4: forced to tramp back to their miserable homes owing to
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 4: the land set apart for colonization, being insufficient to meet
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 4: the demand. Syria, a steamer is now making regular trips
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 4: from Jericho to Tiberius, i e. From the Dead Sea
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 4: to the Sea of Galilee in five hours. Several Jewish
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 4: families recently settled in Jericho and are preparing to irrigate
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 4: extensive fruit farms. Japan, The Russo Japanese Convention has been
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 4: published in Saint Petersburg. It provides that Korea shall retain
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 4: full liberty of action as regards both domestic and foreign policy.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 4: Russia and Japan will each keep a small force of
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 4: troops in Korea until such time as the government can
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 4: maintain order. India. It is estimated that the present famine
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 4: in India would have reduced the population of that country
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 4: by ten million if it had been allowed to run
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 4: its course unchecked. Over three million persons are employed on
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 4: government relief works, and hundreds of thousands more are being
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 4: suckered out of the fund now amounting to the equivalent
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 4: of nearly three million dollars contributed in the British Islands
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 4: Africa Transvaal. The total output of gold for November was
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 4: two hundred one thousand, one hundred thirteen ounces, as compared
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 4: with an output of one hundred ninety five thousand, two
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 4: hundred eighteen ounces. In November eighteen ninety five, Madagascar, the
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 4: French Colonial Minister has announced the intention of the government
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 4: to maintain the equality of all religions in the island
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 4: of Madagascar. He has forbidden by telegraph the proposed confiscation
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 4: of Protestant churches. Algeria. According to the recent census, the
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 4: city of Algiers contains ninety six thousand inhabitants, forty six
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 4: thousand being fringed by birth or naturalization, nine thousand, six
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 4: hundred Jews, twenty five thousand Arabs or belonging to other
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 4: native races, nine thousand, eight hundred Spaniards, three thousand, five
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 4: hundred Italians, one thousand, one hundred Maltese, and two hundred
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 4: thirty five English Central Africa. Mister Poulette Weatherley, an Englishman
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 4: who recently visited Old Chitambo, where Livingstone's heart is buried,
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 4: calls attention to the decay of the tree that marks
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 4: the spot and suggests the necessity of the immediate erection
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 4: of a more enduring monument. Egypt, during the recent Soudan expedition,
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 4: the number of all ranks of the Egyptian army killed
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 4: in action was forty seven. The wounded numbered one hundred
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 4: twenty two. Two hundred thirty five of all ranks died
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 4: of cholera, and one hundred twenty six died of other diseases.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 4: The Egyptian troops are said to have displayed great powers
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 4: of endurance and a remarkable capacity for hard and continuous work.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 4: West Africa, wherever British influence predominates, railroad building is in progress.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 4: A line is in operation from Dekhar, the chief port
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 4: of Senegal, to Saint Louis, one hundred seventy five miles north.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 4: Another line runs from Cays up the valley of the
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 4: Senegal toward Timbuctoo, which it will soon reach. A line
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 4: from Conacree to the Niger is also in contemplation. Doctor
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 4: Carl Peters recently stated in London that the whole African
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 4: question was one of communication. End of section seven, end
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 4: of the National Geographic Magazine, Volume eight, March eighteen ninety seven.