The Philosophy of the Weather Part 1

The Philosophy of the Weather.

by Thomas Belden Butler.

INTRODUCTION.

The atmospheric conditions and phenomena which const.i.tute "The Weather"

are of surpa.s.sing interest. Now, we rejoice in the genial air and warm rains of spring, which clothe the earth with verdure; in the alternating heat and showers of summer, which insure the bountiful harvest; in the milder, ripening sunshine of autumn; or the mantle of snow and the invigorating air of a moderate winter's-day. Now, again, we suffer from drenching rains and, devastating floods, or excessive and debilitating heat and parching drought, or sudden and unseasonable frost, or extreme cold. And now, death and destruction come upon us or our property, at any season, in the gale, the hurricane, or the tornado; or a succession of sudden or peculiar changes blight our expected crops, and plant in our systems the seeds of epidemic disease and death. These, and other normal conditions, and varied changes, and violent extremes, potent for good or evil, are continually alternating above and around us. They affect our health and personal comfort, and, through those with whom we are connected, our social and domestic enjoyments. They influence our business prosperity directly, or indirectly, through our near or remote dependence upon others. They limit our pleasures and amus.e.m.e.nts--they control the realities of to-day, and the antic.i.p.ations of to-morrow. None can prudently disregard them; few can withhold from them a constant attention.

Scientific men, and others, devote to them daily hours of careful observation and registration. Devout Christians regard them as the special agencies of an over-ruling Providence. The prudent, fear their sudden, or silent and mysterious changes; the timid, their awful manifestations of power; and they are, to each and all of us, ever present objects of unfailing interest.

This _interest_ finds constant expression in our intercourse with each other. A recent English writer has said: "The germ of meteorology is, as it were, innate in the mind of every Englishman--the weather is his first thought after every salutation." In the qualified sense in which this was probably intended, it is, doubtless, equally true of us. Indeed, it is often not only a "first thought" _after_ a salutation, but a part of the salutation itself--an offspring of the same friendly feeling, or a part of the same habit, which dictates the salutation--an expression of sympathy in a subject of common and absorbing interest--a sorrowing or rejoicing with those who sorrow or rejoice in the frowns and smiles of an ever-changing, ever-influential atmosphere.

If consistent with our purpose, it would be exceedingly interesting to trace the varied forms of expression in use among different cla.s.ses and callings, and see how indicative they are of character and employment.

The sailor deals mainly with the winds of the hour, and to him all the other phases of the weather are comparatively indifferent. He speaks of airs, and breezes, and squalls, and gales, and hurricanes; or of such appearances of the sky as prognosticate them. The citizens, whose lives are a succession of _days_, deal in such adjectives as characterize the weather of _the day_, according to their cla.s.s, or temperament, or business; and it is pleasant, or fine, or _very_ pleasant or fine; beautiful, delightful, splendid, or glorious; or unpleasant, rainy, stormy, dismal, dreadful or horrible. The farmer deals with the weather of considerable periods; with forward or backward _seasons_, with "cold snaps" or "hot spells," and "wet spells" or "dry spells." And there are many intermediate varieties. The acute observer will find much in them to instruct and amuse him, and will probably be surprised to find how much they have to do with his "first impressions" of others.

But I have a more important object in view. I propose to deal with "The PHILOSOPHY _of the Weather_"--to examine the nature and operation of the arrangements from which the phenomena result; to strip the subject, if possible, of some of the complication and mystery in which traditionary axioms and false theories continue to envelop it; to endeavor to grasp _its principles_, and unfold them in a plain, concise, and systematic manner, to the comprehension of "_the many_," who are equal partners with the scientific in its practical, if not in its philosophic interest; and to deduce a few general rules by which its changes may be understood, and, ultimately, to a considerable extent, foreseen.

This is not an easy, perhaps not a prudent undertaking. Nor is my position exactly that of a volunteer. A few words seem necessary, therefore, by way of apology and explanation.

In the fall of 1853, in the evening of a fair autumnal day, I started for Hartford, in the express train. Just above Meriden, an acquaintance sitting beside me, who had been felicitating himself on the prospect of fine weather for a journey to the north, called my attention to several small patches of scud--clouds he called them--to the eastward of us, between us and the full clear moon, which seemed to be enlarging and traveling south--and asked what they meant.

"Ah!" said I, "they are scud, forming over the central and northern portions of Connecticut, induced and attracted by the influence of a storm which is pa.s.sing from the westward to the eastward, over the northern parts of New England, and are traveling toward it in a southerly surface wind, which we have run into. They seem to go south, because we are running north faster than they. You see them at the eastward because they are forming successively as the storm and its influence pa.s.ses in that direction, and are most readily seen in the range of the moon; but when we reach Hartford you will see them in every direction, more numerous and dense, running north to underlie that storm."

I had seen such appearances too many times to be deceived. It was so. When we arrived at Hartford they were visible in all directions, running to the northward at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour. In the s.p.a.ce of forty minutes we had pa.s.sed from a clear, calm atmosphere (and which still remained so), into a cloudy, damp air, and brisk wind blowing in the same direction we were traveling, and toward a heavy storm. My friend pa.s.sed on, and met the southern edge of the rain at Deerfield, and had a most unpleasant journey during the forenoon of the next day. Taking the cars soon afterwards, in the afternoon, for the south, I found him on his return.

"Shall I have fair weather now till I get home?" said he.

"There are no indications of a storm here, or at present," I replied, "but we may observe them elsewhere, and at nightfall."

He kept a sharp look-out, and, as we neared New Haven, discovered faint lines of cirrus cloud low down in the west, extending in parallel bars, contracting into threads, up from the western horizon, in an E. N. E.

direction toward the zenith.

"Now, what is that?" said he.

"The eastern outlying edge of a N. E. storm, approaching from the W. S. W.

It is now raining from 150 to 200 miles to the westward of the eastern extremity of those bars of cirrus-condensation; perhaps more, perhaps less; and under those bars of condensation the wind is attracted, and is blowing from the N. E. toward the body of the storm, and where the condensation is sufficiently dense to drop rain. That dense portion will reach here, and it will rain from twelve to fifteen hours hence. As we pa.s.s along the sh.o.r.e, and run under that out-lying advance cirrus-condensation, we shall see that the vessels in the Sound have the wind from the N. E., freshening, but we shall continue to have this light and scarcely-perceptible air from the northward for a time--_the N. E.

wind always setting in toward an approaching storm, out on the Sound, much sooner than upon the land_."

As we approached the storm, and the storm us, the evidence of denser condensation at the west, and of wind from the east, blowing toward it, became more apparent. The fore and aft vessels were running "up Sound"

with "sheet out and boom off," before a fresh N. E. breeze, and my friend was astonished.

"I must understand this," said he; "how is it?"

"All very simple. The page of nature spread out above us is intelligible to him who will attentively study it. The laws which produce the impressions and changes upon that page, are few and comprehensible.

Although there is great variety, even upon the limited portion which is bounded by our horizon, there is also substantial uniformity; and, although the changes are always extensive, often covering an area of one thousand miles or more, and our vision can not extend in any direction more than from thirty to fifty, yet those changes are always, to a considerable extent, intelligible, and may often be foreseen."

"Has meteorology made such progress?"

"By no means. It has, indeed, been raised to the dignity of a science, and professorships endowed for its advancement. Some books have been written, and many theories broached in relation to it; and innumerable observations of the states of the barometer and thermometer, of the clouds, and the quant.i.ty of fallen rain, and the direction and force of the wind--made and recorded simultaneously in different countries--have been published and compared; and a great many important facts established, and tables of '_means_' constructed, and just inferences drawn, yet the _few and simple arrangements_ upon which all the phenomena depend, and _their philosophy_, have not yet been clearly elicited or understood."

"Have not the 'American a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science'

arrived at some definite and sound conclusion upon the subject?"

"No; it has been with them, for many years, an interesting subject for papers and debate. Some very valuable articles, upon particular topics, or branches of the subject, have been read and published. But the _Cyclonologists_, as they term themselves, and who seem to think the great question is, '_Are storms whirlwinds?_' appear with new editions and phases of their favorite views as regularly as the annual meeting recurs; and, though they have not convinced, they seem to have silenced their opponents. The only conclusion, however, judging from their debates, to which the a.s.sociation appear to have come with any considerable unanimity, is, that they are yet without sufficient _authentic observations_ and well-established facts, to authorize the adoption of the Huttonian, Daltonian, Gyratory, or Aspiratory, or any of the other numerous theories which abound. And they are right. The subject is mystified by these theories and speculations of the study, founded on barometrical and thermometrical records, and the direction and force of the surface winds.

"The qualities of heat were among the earlier discoveries of science, and all the phenomena of the weather were forthwith attributed to its influence. Hastily-formed and erroneous views of its power, and the manner of its action in particular localities, and under particular circ.u.mstances, have retained the credence accorded to them when first announced, although subsequent discoveries have shown their fallacy; some new theory of _modification_ having been invented to reconcile the discrepancies as soon as they appeared. Perhaps it is not too much to say (however it may seem to one not thoroughly acquainted with the subject, who does not know that the _primary_ and secondary modifying hypotheses found in Kamtz, may be counted by hundreds) that there is not remaining in any other science, and possibly in all others, an equal amount of false and absurd theory, and of forced and unnatural grouping of admitted facts to sustain it, as in meteorology as at present taught and received.

Astronomy, as a science, is almost perfected--the nature, and size, and orbits, of the distant worlds around us are known--while constant changes and alternating atmospheric conditions, which all occur _within less than six miles of us_, affecting all our important interests, and obvious to our senses, although much talked off, and made the objects of many theories, are but little understood."

"How, then, did you acquire the information you seem to possess?"

"By studying '_the countenance of the sky_,' for in no other way has such information ever been, or can it ever be, acquired. By a long-continued, daily, and sometimes hourly observation of the clouds and currents of the atmosphere, in connection with such reports of the then state of the weather elsewhere, as have fallen under my notice, and the effect of its changes upon the animal creation--for very much can be learned from them.

Yonder flock of black ducks that sit on that insh.o.r.e rock, above the tide--the wildest and most suspicious of all their tribe--although the air is calm about them, know well that a storm is at hand. They probably both see and feel it. As twilight approaches they will fly away inland, forty or fifty miles perhaps, and settle among the lilies or gra.s.s which surround some fresh-water pond, certain of remaining while the storm lasts, and for one day at least, out of danger, and undisturbed. Many a time, in my boyhood, have I heard, in the stillness of evening, the whistling of their wings, as they swept up the Connecticut valley, to seek, on the borders of the coves, and in the creeks of the meadows, a concealed and safe feeding-place during a coming storm. And many a time in the autumn, after they had all pa.s.sed down for the season, when the indications of an approaching storm were clearly visible at nightfall, have I waited for them to return, on the eastern margin of a bend in the cove, on the eastern side of a creek, to shoot them, though invisible, by shooting across the head of the wake, which they made upon the water in alighting, and from which the few remaining rays of twilight that came from the western sky were reflected.

"But I am far from being singular in this. That page is more extensively read than is generally supposed. Many plain, una.s.suming men--farmers, shipmasters, and others within the circle of my acquaintance--know more, practically, of the weather than the most learned closet-theorist, or the most indefatigable recorder of its changes. Every one, by studying the page of nature above him, as he would the page of any other science, and testing, by observation, the numerous theories invented to account for the varied phenomena, may learn much, very much, that will be useful and interesting to him, and which he can never learn from books, or instruments, or theories alone."

"Well," said my friend, "I am too far advanced in life, as are many others, to commence such observations, and you must publish."

I demurred, and he insisted.

"It is difficult to spare the time; and I can not neglect my profession,"

I urged.

"Where there is a will there is a way," he replied.

"It is difficult to make one's self understood without many ill.u.s.trations."

"Very well, they are easily obtained."

"But they cost money, and it is said 'science will not pay its way' like fiction and humbug."

"That," said he, "is a libel--such science will. Every one is interested in the weather--all talk about it--and thousands would carefully observe it, if they could be correctly guided in their observations."

"I may get into unpleasant controversy."

"Suppose you do; you can yield your position if wrong, and maintain it if right, and _magna est veritas_."

"But I may be mistaken in some of the views to which it will be necessary to advert, if I attempt to systematize the subject."

"Be it so--your mistakes may lead others to the discovery of the truth.

Besides, the weather is _common property_, and every one has a right to theorize about it, or to talk about it, as they please--even to call a stormy day a pleasant one, or make any other mistaken remark concerning it; and every other person is ent.i.tled to a like lat.i.tude of reply. And further," said he, with some emphasis, "no important observation, in relation to a subject of such interest, should be lost; and, if you have observed one new fact, or drawn one new and just inference from those which have been observed by others; and especially if, from observation and reading, you can deduce from the phenomena an intelligible, _observable, general system_, it is not only your right, but duty, to make it known. Such a knowledge of the true system is greatly desired by every considerate man."

To my friend's last argument I was compelled to yield. I could make no reply consistent with the great principles of fraternity, which I shall ever recognize. The promise was given. My friend went on his way, and I went to the daguerreotypist to procure a copy of the then appearance of the sky, as the first step toward its fulfillment. The fulfillment of that promise, reader, you will find in the following work. It was commenced as an article for a magazine, but it has grown on my hands to a volume.

Justice could not well be done to the subject in less s.p.a.ce. It has been written during occasional and distant intervals of relaxation from professional avocations, or during convalescence from sickness, and it is, for these reasons, somewhat imperfect in style and arrangement. But I have no time to rewrite. There is much in it which will be old to those who read journals of science, but new to those who do not. There is more which will be new to all cla.s.ses of readers, and may, perhaps, be deemed heretical and revolutionary by conservative meteorologists; yet I feel a.s.sured that the work is a step in the right direction--that it contains a substantially accurate exposition of the Philosophy of the Weather, and valuable suggestions for the practical observer.

I have inserted my name in the t.i.tle-page, contrary to my original intention, and at the suggestion of others; for I have no scientific reputation which will aid the publisher to sell a copy. Nor do I desire to acquire such reputation. It can never form any part of my "capital in life." Nor has it influenced me at all in preparing the work. I have aimed to fulfill a promise, too hastily given, perhaps--to put on record the observations I have made, and the inferences I have drawn from those of others--to induce and a.s.sist further observations, and, if possible, of a _general_ and _connected character_--and to impress those who may read what I have written with the belief, that _they will derive a degree of pleasure from a daily familiarity with, and intelligent understanding of, the "countenance of the sky," not exceeded by that which any other science can afford them_.