Daily Alta California, Volume 35, Number 12007, 9 March 1883 — U_rnnm >. ..rri^qr. iUrcfc 9. WEATHER PROPHETS. [ARTICLE]

U_rnnm >. ..rri^qr. iUrcfc 9.

WEATHER PROPHETS.

There ia bo amshasßs in whioh a man cao get so much free advertising as that of the weather prophet It alee reqwres atas oapiaer and Wievgm are the beat advertised saw oc Ux- umtißSsit The papers teem with sMtsOW ot them . there is not one of the ten thousand aswsiJSiJtn in the Cnited Mates that has not mentioned their names, ami the

■Mat dailies of Hew York and Chicago give ■p columns of editorial space to articles in which Wicgin and Tennor are served up. generally in a strain of ridicule, it is true, but ia a manner which is j«st as valuable as any other for advertising purposes. If these two meteorologists possess the philosophic spirit the poUUciM who exclaimed, "I don"t care how people talk about me, so long as they talk." they mast oonfeat" that their ameeess has esaeeded their wildest hopes. Vennor, who has been in the prophecy business several years, has sold hit almanac in immense numbers, and Waßgiß is in a fair way to achieve equal financial success in his career of charlatanry. His first play was to address a letter to the President of the Oni'.ed BeatsM. predicting treat stormi daring tbe months of February and March. This was a bold bid for notoriety and it worked like a charm. His prophecy was sent all over the country, by telegraph and by mail, and Wig. ariD, who had gone to bed at night an unknown mao, awoke next morning to find himself famoas . Bis name was on everybody* tongoe. By the intelligent his prophecies were treated aseSagly and by f oelish seriously; but both alike served his purpose of advertising him. Heavy journals published ponderous articles to refute him, and the bead if the Signal Service Bureau was interviewed for the same purpose. For the price of one postage stamp the cute Canadian got more advertising than he could have obtained at a

«wet c; hundreds of thousand* oSdoUars. if *be had paid for it. Of coots* his prophecies failed, as he knew they would, but that did sot matter. Be had made his point, and it bow only remains to see bow be will utilize Lit s&ddenly-exqGired celebrity. The moral of all this doubtless is that the subject of most absorbing interest to the fifty miUtoe people of the United States is the weather. All other questions possess interest fee certain classes of people and not for others, but this is universal in its reeeh. Two ajUssaliaSl charlatans were the first to disoo ver it. but that if no extraordinary oiroamstanoe. A famous bistoriaa onoe remarked that it bad bees left for Walter Bcott, a writer of romaDeee, to discover that there were Saxons and Nor. mans in England eight hundred years ago. The most important question is whether, Mi universal went having been discovered, tbere is not some means of partially meeting it with a supply of really valuable information based on ■ ienti&c facts, instead of leaving tbe thing to ignorant charlatans. In the present state of science it is impossible by observations of sir currents and temperature

to predict the weather for more than a few days ie advance. Bat it would afford some satis, 1 action if the meteorological observations of a lon£ ftti'b of years were worked up and pre«euttd in popular form, showing what tbe actual slate of knowledge on the subject is. It-.- would at least prevent people from rueBicg alter humbugs and pretenders. The science of meteorology, moreover, is a grow ing one, and is a few yean- it ma; be possiMe to attempt mon than tbe Signal Serv.txnow does. Professor Smith, the well known Sootch aatiDtssasi. claims to have discovered that tv the application cf the spectroscope to atsneswihs'rir observations, it is already poesilt to foretell the coons of the weather tor iiiißßiiiaiElili periods.