Items of Interest May 20, 1916 Issue

Items of Interest

Willis L. Moore, former chief of the United States Weather Bureau, in an editorial written for The National Editorial Service, commenting upon the long-distance weather forecasting of W. F. Carothers of Houston, Texas, as based upon variations in the intensity of solar-radiation, says:

"A working hypothesis that satisfies the requirements of science with regard to this discovery may be stated as follows: That the passage of the earth through a shaft of extra heat, due to rifts in the sun's photosphere, expands the lower air at the equator more than it does at high latitudes, causing the air at the equator to bulge upward until huge masses, like avalanches of snow on a mountainside, break loose and slide down the incline toward the poles. These masses crowd each other because of the converging of the meridians of longitude, have their northward movement checked, and drop or settle down to the earth in the form of cool or cold waves in the middle latitudes or near the arctic circle. They settle over continents in winter and over oceans in summer, because the plane on which they slide is steeper over land in winter and over oceans in summer. As they settle they cause rotating cyclonic storm-eddies to ascend on both their eastern and western sides, and thus indirectly cause rain and snow fall."

The tract of land on Mount Desert Island which President Wilson is asked to accept on behalf of the Government as a national park and memorial to early settlers, covers about five thousand acres and includes a greater part of the mountainous center of the island, sections that have little value beyond their natural beauty and the lumber on them. Among them are the lands around Eagle Lake and Jordan's Pond, bodies which furnish water for Bar Harbor and Seal Harbor respectively; the top of Green Mountain, from which may be had the finest distant view in southern Maine; the Green Mountain carriage drive, running up the side of the mountain; Oucjet Mountain, a small eminence overlooking the village of Bar Harbor; parts of Newport and Dry Mountains, and a strip comprising the greater part of the chain of mountains in the center of the island; Fawn Pond and its shores, including Beehive Mountain and part of the famous ocean drive; the southerly ridge of Newport Mountain, and Barr's Hill, which overlooks the village of Seal Harbor.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

"The sharp surplus of materiality"