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July 19, 1909.]
should be a man, if not of sound business training, at least of strong business proclivi- ties. Incidentally, it may be added that on this score the British public have no reason to be dissatisfied with the services rendered by Sir JOHN JORDAN, though His Excellency's training in the Consular service may not be that which President. TAFT judges to constitute the best qualifications for a Minister at the Chinese capital. The PRESIDENT Would seem to be experiencing no little difficulty in finding his ideal man for the post, but his offer of the post to Mr. HAYS HAMMOND, the well-known American mining expert, shows the type of business man the PRESIDENT is seeking. The announce ment of the success of his quest is eagerly awaited, for the interest which attaches to the impending American commercial and politi cal developments in China naturally centres in the appointment of the Minister whose special duty it will be to promote them.
WEATHER FORECASTS.
(Daily Press, 12th July.) That the main factor in the determination of terrestrial climate from year to year is the condition of the atmospheric circulation, and that this circulation in some way, as yet nexplained, is dependent on extraterres- trial causes, are two deductions from our knowledge of climatal variations with which few meteorologists will be found to quarrel. That in their daily forecast the meteorolo- gists omit all reference to these fundamental rules is also a fact not always easy of ex- planation. The main reason is probably that as yet meteorologists have been content to study their science from too restricted a standpoint; and have sought to bring it into harmony with too narrow a set of local conditions. Meteorologists are not for the most part mathematicians, and no mathe- matician of sufficient grasp of the subject has as yet seen his way to elevating the study of weather forecasting into a philosophy. This, however, is what there are a few indications will one day be done for meteorology at large, and the scientific meteorologist may one day be found able to predict for each year in advance the general characteristics, leaving it for the local meteorologist to fill in the local conditions of his own particular province.
We have learned much of meteorology of recent years, and the foundation for a mathematical treatment is growing more secure year by year, but as yet the data are insufficient; or the capable mathematician able and willing to give his mind to the solution of the problem has not as yet appeared. Still there are a few facts, even with our present knowledge, capable of being correlated. Indian meteorology has introduc ed one, at least, comprehensive term in the modern use of the expression "failure of the monsoon" applied to conditions when from some as yet unexplained cause, the annual rains have failed to fall in some considerable area of the Peninsula, and the consequence is that hundreds of thousands, or in some cases millions, of the unfortunate tillers of the ground, instead of adding to the resources of the land have to be supported out of Government funds. Now certain astronomical students, accustomed to the use of the term periodicity, and disposed to see a periodic law in all celestial phenomena, have noticed, or thought they noticed, a tendency to a like phenomenon in climatal variations. Generally a vague period of about eleven years has been surmised, and this has been correlated with a like term during which disturbances in the upper layers of the sun's atmosphere, generally known as sun-spots, have been noticed to
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. attain a maximum. Other astronomers have found an approach to a real period at about thirty-four years, during which similar sea- cons repeat themselves, but though the meteorologists would be quite willing to accept some such general law, they have been for the most part prevented from doing so by certain wants of coincidence between the theory and their own observations, or appa rent observations.
In this case it is probably the so-called observation that is at fault. There are, of course, many methods of observation, all founded equally on facts, and as such un. questionable; yet when brought to the test of experience and compared with general laws are found to be of no utility in evoking a condition of order. One of the principal causes of this failure is the excessive use of averaging, and the omission of extremes-a practice that leads to a mistaken view of the entire subject. We might, for example, in discussing the motion of the earth around the
sun omit the two maximum points of the perihelion and the aphelion, and proceed to make our calculations as if the only factor to be considered were the mean distance. An instance of this occurred to the writer, in calculating from ancient Chinese records the possibility of discovering some periodic law. Lumping all the obser- vations together, the only result was a vague uniformity; dividing the observations into sections of north and south, a very marked periodicity was the result, but the observa- tions were as a rule too vague to lend themselves to any precision. Still there did seem to be a great weather cycle of some 228-years, and this seems in some curious arithmetical relation with the shorter terms of approximately cleven and thirty-four years respectively.
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the basin of the Yangtsze, becomes flooded from the rise of the rivers, and the entire balin becomes one huge lake, the crops being drowned out, and the cattle in large measure killed off.
Now such appears to be the programme provided for the coming summer, and from every side in Mid-China come in complaints of the drowning out of the young crops, and the more overt destruction wrought directly by the rising floods. In apparent strange contrast with this are the conditions in North China, where unavailing prayers are being offered by the command of the REGENT for rain, which has almost totally ceased north of the thirty-fifth parallel. From what we at present know of natural climatal laws in China, these two contrary conditions existing alongside one another must both be referred to the one cause, the
failure" of the monsoon. But in its turn the failure of the monsoon is fncapable of explanation from any mere local or territorial cause. Mathematically it can only be brought about by some diminution in the momentary radiation of heat, and the conse quent lower temperature of those district- whose annual heating by solar radiation is known to induce the inflow of the periodicas winds. Astronomers have often suggested, that the sun is really a variable star; but asi yet no tangible reason for his variability bus been discovered, though it has been sought for many years.
More than once these cases of diminished solar radiation in Mid-China have been associated with excessive outbursts of heat elsewhere, and frequently the scene turns out to be America. While, in fact, the valley of the Yangtze is this year so much cooler than the average that there is scarce- ly heat enough to bring to maturity the In this connection the present year seems
rice crop, did such exist, from New York we not unlikely as an exceptional climatic year have news of bundreds dying from excés- in China, at least. To add to our knowledge.sive heat, and this would seem to contradict China must, however, be taken regionally, not as a whole; and meteorologically the valley of the Yangtsze seems to be the main determinant of the year. As a rule in these regions during the latter part of April, and the greater part of May, rain falls sporadi- cally over the entire area, sufficient to fill the beds of the rivers and the irrigating channels. This year for practically six weeks not a drop of rain fell, and the streams and creeks were almost dried up, and it was with difficulty that sufficient water was found to irrigate the spring crops.
For- tunately about the 24th June rain com- menced to fall in some abundance. The ordinary course of the monsoon is that in April, varying a week or two, the Spring rains arrive, after which a generally well marked period of dry weather super- venes, and from the fifteenth to the twenty. first of June, according to the strength of the approaching monsoon, the regular Summer monsoon winds set in accompanied by more or less rain. In ordinary years, from the 20th to the 24th June, these rains, which always accompany the northern fringe of the monsoon, proceed to move north, and by the first week in July have arrived in Man- churia, often producing flood in the valley When the of the Liao and its tributaries. monsoon proves of insufficient initial force to move on northwards, the rains linger in the basin of the Yangtsze between 28° and 34° north latitude; in which case as a rule absolute drought prevails in North China, where the crops almost invariably prove failures--in some years the ground becom- ing as parched as & desert, and all vegetable life is extinguished. The worst part of the result as far as China is concern- ed, is that while the North is reduced to desert conditions, Mid-China, especially in I
the evidence we have spoken of as to the conditions having been brought about by a defect in the solar radiation. Examined more closely we may see that both are logical consequences of the same set of phenomena. At the beginning of our article we spoke of the atmospheric circulation being the As a fact the main cause of climate. climate of the various regions on the earth's surface is profoundly modified and mediatised by the action of the prevalept winds, Were it not for the cir- culation of the atmosphere while the regions about the equator would be uninhabitable from excessive heat, life in the parts of the temperate zone nearer the poles would be impossible from the practical absence of any heat whatever. Neither condition prevails owing to the constant flow of the winds, But this circulation is brought about direct- ly by solar radiation, and as we have seen is diminished when from any cause the radiation is lowered. While, then, the northern districts of the earth within the monsoon influence ordinarily during summer enjoy a higher and meister climate than they would otherwise meet with, in case of failure their average temperature is lower. North of the influence of the monsoon, in a. comparatively narrow
strip about north latitude 40° the summer heat, owing to the longer day, has a tendency
rise to extremes. In to
ordinary seasons this is tempered by the cool anti- cyclonic winds prevailing north of this latitude. But a failure in solar radiation has
ita effects likewise in diminish. ing the strength of these anti-cyclonic winds, as well as of the equinoctial wind, with the consequence that their cooling influence is not brought to bear on this strip of the earth's surface. There is then nothing more
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