Box 14, Folder 4: Climate

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a systematic effort has been made, chiefly by the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, to collect and collate the observations made throughout the world and to deduce from them the general laws which govern the weather.

Already the nature of storms on the ocean has been so well ascertained that no mariner need here after be caught within their influence. By faithfully applying the knowledge already obtained he can so steer his course as to avoid them.

The investiagation [investigation] which it is now proposed to make may be the means of determining in like manner the laws which govern the storms and sudden gales of wind that sweep with such destructive fury across our great lakes. Should it be the means of preventing even in a slight degree those appall appalling disasters to our lake navigation with which our papers are annually filled the state would be benefited much beyond any amount she may expend in this direction. In one year no less than 55 lives were lost, 72 vessels driven ashore, 19 totally wrecked, 5 capsized, 6 sunk, 8 dismasted, 1 foundered and 23 others more or less damaged by these sudden storms on the

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lakes: the loss of property being estimated at half a million of dollars. It is needless to enter into any arguments to show that quite a considerable share of this loss falls directly upon the people of Wisconsin and that any abatement of it would be a direct gain to them.

In this inquiry it would be obviously wrong to confine our attention to the observations made within this state; the climatic phenomena are limited by no such narrow boundaries. The observations made in the adjoining states should also be consulted.

The climate of Wisconsin when fully made out will present many novel and interesting features. The broad valley of the Mississippi opening directly towards the tropics gives free ingress to the warm influences of the sunny south; the great lakes on the east and north are so many regulators modifying both of the extreme heat of summer and the extreme cold of winter; the isothermal lines will be found to have some curious curves, only to be accounted for by the consideration of very numerous and wide spread phenomena acting perhaps over half the globe.