"It's the same way with the weather. We know well enough how to do the things that would enable us to prophesy a long time in advance what the weather is going to be, but the problem approaches impossibility because there are too many factors that enter into the calculation. We're learning all the time, but it's a big piece of work and needs big men to do it. That's why, Anton, I can't tell you why this particular district had more rain this year than it has had for several seasons past."
Anton, pegging away on his crutch beside the Forecaster, looked up at him with an added eagerness in his eyes.
"And yet all those things are going on, right where I can see them!" he exclaimed.
"Yes," the Weather Man answered. "Some men can explore distant countries, and we envy them; some men can explore the greatest and the smallest things in the world with marvellous scientific instruments and we envy them, too; but every day and all day, and every night and all night, we are surrounded by the World of the Weather, less explored, less known than even the most remote corner of the earth. Why, Anton, if you could simply follow all the various causes that brought about this flood that made you homeless, you would have a story of adventure that would make the most daring explorer green with envy."
"But you do predict floods and rains, Mr. Levin," Ross put in. "Father told me, a week ago, that warnings for this flood had been sent out by the Weather Bureau."
"Yes, indeed," the Weather Man answered. "I should say that weather warnings issued by the Bureau save half a billion dollars to the country every year and prevent the loss of hundreds of lives. All those are short-range predictions. Very few of them cover much more than a week in advance, except, perhaps, a West Indian Hurricane which has been reported from the Antilles, or a flood on the Mississippi which is caused by heavy rains in the upper reaches of the streams flowing into it."
"Well, that's prophesying, isn't it?"
"Yes, and no," was the reply. "It's predicting, and it's due to observation. If a storm is moving eastward, with a heavy rainfall, and we've had telegraphic dispatches from all the towns in the west through which it has passed, it's not hard to figure the speed at which the storm is traveling, and it's a sure prediction to tell a city to the eastward of that storm that rain can be expected at about a certain date. Or, if there's a high flood wave at St. Louis, and we know the speed of the Mississippi current, we can notify Greenville, Vicksburg, and New Orleans at what time the trouble is likely to come to them. If no more rain is falling at Greenville and the river is going down there, we can notify Vicksburg that the flood danger is passing away. That's the observational end of the work, and in that line, the Weather Bureau of the United States is the best in the world."
The weather expert was proceeding to explain in detail the manner of collecting these observations, when suddenly Anton clutched him by the arm.
"What's that, Mr. Levin?" he cried.