CHAPTER XXVII.

PREDICTION AND PREVENTION.

“Fain would th’ ephemeral pigmies then aspire To drive, like Phäethon, the sun’s coach of fire, To grapple with the lightning in the sky, Or with the restless winds abroad to fly. Not all the bolts of Jove, nor Phœbus’ wrath, May fright them from their wild, self-chosen path. Though poplars wave above ten thousand graves, And myriad Icari lie beneath the waves, The rest, as once the Titans, still press on, And strive to thrust the great gods from their throne.”

Ever since man has dwelt upon the earth, there has been a constant effort, not merely to foretell the future, but to control it. So strong is man’s faith in his own capacity, that wizards, jugglers, fakirs and tricksters, and necromancers have always found their vocation a lucrative one. It is easy to make one’s living by imposing upon the credulity of the public. Not merely the American people, but every other people, like to be humbugged. So strong is the tendency to gullibility, that the most extraordinary pretensions are the most readily credited. The capability of the public to judge in such cases is well illustrated by the Grecian story of the famous mimic, whose imitation of the grunt of a pig was so perfect, that thousands came to witness his performance. A countryman remarked that he could do still better, and, concealing a pig under his coat, he stole upon the stage. Pinching the animal’s ear, the pig squealed violently, but the audience hissed the squeak as a miserable fiasco. Whereat the countryman produced the pig, and left the audience pondering the situation.

The same tendency causes men to desire to attribute unusual appearances to causes beyond the domain of natural law. The savage finds thunder and lightning in the discharge of a gun; mysterious magic in a telescope; downright sorcery in quinine; witchcraft and incantation in a written prescription. If one, a little shrewder than his fellows, after long study of an ant’s nest, conceive the idea that they have a regularly constituted community, with a queen at the head, he needs only to suggest such a thing to his neighbors, to be set down as having communications with the Ant Queen; and he may readily aspire to the chieftainship, thence to be known as the Ant Chief. Imagination is so much easier than observation. Doubtless old Numa’s thoughtful air in his daily retreat, gave rise to the tale that he was in consultation with the nymph of a fountain. Any one who had devoted an hour each day to gazing pensively into a stream, might have achieved a like reputation, as the Hindoo fakir is held in high repute for sanctity, because he preserves strict silence and gazes for years at the end of his nose.

So when men achieve new results by natural means, it is preferred to assume otherwise. Good Roger Bacon invented gunpowder by witchcraft. The early chemists were in league with the Evil One. Faust and Gutenberg sold their souls to the devil, in order to get Bibles printed. The Magdeburg physicist, who made a water barometer in which a wooden figure rose or fell as the atmosphere varied, was the devil’s own child. Cows sickened and died at the will of shrivelled dames who rode through the air on broomsticks.

Foreknowledge is always confounded with foreordination. The weather prophet is transformed into a weathermaker. The myth of Aeolus is thus explained. Once a king of the Lipari Isles, by careful observation of the vapor cloud over Stromboli he was enabled to announce changes of weather a day or two in advance, as every observant man in that region can do to-day. The simple subjects attributed his knowledge to supernatural powers, and after his death perpetuated the story of Aeolus, the king of the winds, who dwelt in a cave in one of the islands.

In the time of Elijah, the prophets of Baal were confident of procuring rain by howling, cutting and slashing; while Ahab believed Elijah was responsible for the drought. The negro and the red man to-day show the same characteristics in this respect. The negro rain-maker makes fetich; the red chief, “big medicine,” to bring rains. The reputed success of each is proportioned to his shrewdness in recognizing tokens of change in the weather.

The great white man is often little better. While no longer trusting in the power of any one to control the weather, he has set up a god of false science, whom all must bow down to and worship. True knowledge is often flouted and scouted; but every one who would attract attention must assume at least the appearance of learning. College degrees are bought and sold at reasonable prices. No questions asked. The dancing-master is professor. The pugilist has become professor. The man who fiddles for beer in the corner saloon is professor. Weep, O Minerva!

So any one who wishes especial importance to be attached to his utterances, needs but assume a title, or a few mystic letters. Every great catastrophe produces a plentiful brood of them. As soon as the Charleston earthquake alarmed the country, it was announced that a grave “Prof.” had predicted it. He was the hero of the hour. Interviewers flocked from many quarters. For weeks the words of “Prof.” ----, were as ointment poured out. The papers gave him great space--published sketches of his career. So much adulation was too much for human nature; besides, he owed a duty to the public. A man so gifted should continue to give warning of impending dangers. He did so. They didn’t materialize. The “Prof.” has had little attention for three years.

The Louisville tornado afforded other cases. A woman in the west predicted a combined deluge and earthquake, with other minor horrors on the side, as prepared for the Pacific coast. Some of the gullible people sold out at great sacrifice, that they might lose as little as possible by the greatest cyclone and earthquake of the century. Others drew up a formal petition to the Governor, calling upon him to proclaim a day of supplication and fasting for the doomed cities of Oakland, San Francisco and Alameda. The end of the world drew nigh, and these three cities, as eminently wicked, would be first punished; after which Chicago and Milwaukee would suffer.

Bands of believers met and wrestled mightily in prayer that the unparalleled horrors might be averted. They were eminently successful.

Another came forward and announced that the entire Mississippi valley was to be visited with a cataclysm, such as no man had ever conceived. The floods were to break all the levees, wash away everything that was within a hundred miles of the stream, tear up the delta built by the deposits of ages, and leave the site of New Orleans at the bottom of the sea. At this writing the Crescent City is in hourly expectation of its doom.

Yet another seer, warned of the Lord in a vision, perhaps, has just declared the fate of the Atlantic coast. Before the end of the century there will be an earthquake such as no man ever before has known. The fountains of the great deep are to be broken up. All the cities of the New England coast will be desolated by immense sea waves. Manhattan Island, with the city of New York, and Long Island, are to be sunk to the bottom of the sea. Our hearts fail us for fear for the things that are coming upon the earth. Let us hope that peradventure there be yet five righteous men in Sodom.

Some years ago great sensation was occasioned by the discovery of Mother Shipton’s prophecy among some old English manuscripts. It began:

“Carriages shall without horses go, And accidents fill the world with woe; Around the world men’s thoughts shall fly, In the twinkling of an eye.”

After a few statements of this sort, it closed by saying:

“The world to an end shall come In eighteen hundred and eighty-one.”

Great was the fright of not a few timid believers. Many arranged their affairs for the end of the world. Some, as the Millerites have several times done, prepared their ascension robes. Finally, the whole thing proved to be a hoax. A wag had endeavored to amuse himself at the expense of the public.

Such are fair specimens of predictions that continually appear in the newspapers. Certain men will always endeavor to astonish the ignorant by their words and works. Seldom do sober-minded people pay the least attention to them. As for minor changes in weather, they are so constant, and so limited in area, that, as stated elsewhere, any one is safe for announcing the character of the weather for any day in the year. From a score of places, he could obtain testimonials of the correctness of his prognostications; while nine score more, if they spoke, might declare him altogether mistaken.

But many will ask in all seriousness, if there is no means of prediction upon which all may depend. Is any more reliance to be placed upon the prognostications of the Signal Service than upon those of the self-constituted prophets?

A brief statement of the principles relied upon will be satisfactory on this point.

Our weather bureau was established in 1870. Such organizations are maintained, at the public expense, in Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Russia, India, Algeria, and Japan. Several smaller countries share in the expense and benefits. Men long trained in the work grow more reliable. Each must first master the topography and the prevailing movements of the atmosphere of any region, ere he can presume to know anything of the probable changes.

How extremely important a knowledge of the country is, will be understood when it is remembered that mountain ranges may turn aside great storms, and hills of any considerable size may modify small ones. And in general, storm paths are so narrow, in comparison with the whole country, that the slightest variation at the start may be very important at the end of six hundred or seven hundred miles--or a day’s travel. So, announcing twenty-four hours beforehand the exact locality a storm may reach is really a very delicate piece of work. If a tyro should announce rain for North Georgia, he might be astonished to find a difference of twenty-one per cent. between Atlanta and Augusta. He would find in Tennessee sixteen per cent. difference between Knoxville and Nashville; or twelve and a half per cent. in Iowa between Dubuque and Davenport.

The Signal Service does not endeavor to forecast entirely new conditions so much as to give warning of storms already on the way. It can not safely say where a storm will arise; but it can declare with tolerable certainty the path a storm will pursue after having once started.

Yet, there are certain signs of rain that can be of use to the public. Americans, as a rule, pay less attention to the actions of the animal kingdom at change of weather than other nations; and the lower animals detect changes of weather more quickly than man. Slugs and snails often leave their crannies, and endeavor to find some drier retreat at the approach of rain. Swallows fly lower; chiefly because the insects they pursue abandon the upper air. Crickets and grasshoppers become less noisy, and seek snug retreats. Fish leap more frequently from the water. The oft-praised tree-frog seems not to have deserved the confidence placed in him as a barometer.

Quatremere Disjonval, when made a prisoner of war by the Dutch, made a careful study of the habits of the house spider, while in confinement. His observations played an important part in the war. “General Pichegru, being prevented by the mild weather from carrying out his intention of invading that country, was about to retire with his army from the Dutch frontier, when Disjonval found means to inform him that, from the signs he had observed in his spiders, a severe frost was sure to take place in the next ten days. Pichegru trusted to the prognostic: the frost came in time. Holland was conquered, and Disjonval released from his prison.”

Voigt asserts that the spider is so reliable a barometer because of its anatomy: the long, slender, unmailed legs being peculiarly sensitive to atmospheric changes. That is, when Madam Spider finds herself with a touch of rheumatism, she wraps herself in a thicker blanket and takes to her den. In fine weather the garden spiders are much more plentiful; and the tiny gossamer spiders also are numerous, and fly at greater heights.

These serve to illustrate the class of phenomena most relied upon by those in every land who must spend much time in the open air. The scientist may understand the laws of winds and rains: but the farmer, the shepherd, the fisherman, and sailor, to whom every phase of weather means much, can, relying upon the actions of the lower animals, detect approaching changes as readily, in many cases, as the Signal Service; and far more readily or correctly than the quasi learned theorist whose stock in trade is a hobby and an unlimited quantity of assumption.

It is one thing to understand law; it is quite another to be able to make practical application of it. Franklin identified lightning with electricity; a century passed before practical use of the electric light resulted. We know now the general laws of air currents, but little application of them has been made.

As to the possibility of controlling the winds, no one has thus far had the temerity to propose it. But that rainfall can be partially controlled is well known. The heaviest rains occur in forest areas; and in turn, the matted roots of the forest and jungle retard the descent of the rain into the water courses, and hinder the washing away of the soil. Floods have become more sudden and destructive in the lumber regions since the timber has been cut away, while the actual rainfall is not so great. So a number of our Western States require a “homesteader” to plant a tree claim.

A bold genius has recently asserted that we may produce rain at will, by sending up balloons loaded with dynamite or other powerful explosives, and then firing them. It has been observed that almost every great modern battle has been followed by a heavy rainfall; and the idea is, that the continued explosions have had much to do with them. Frequenters of Fourth of July picnics will readily vouch for the correctness of the theory.

Doubtless a more effective plan would be simply to apply the well known first principle of air-currents and storms--heated air; but this would be immensely expensive. Every year sees exemplifications of it, however, in the heavy rains that follow the great forest fires or prairie fires of our own land. Natives of tropical regions frequently burn the jungle at the close of the dry season; and the unusual heating of large areas in this way doubtless has much to do with hastening the advent of rain.

The expedient of firing the sawgrass ponds is frequently resorted to in Florida, and has been brought to the notice of the public in official meteorological reports. It is directly in accordance with the principle of restoration of the balance of forces, whereby a long heated term is followed by unusually heavy rains.

But, in contending with subterranean forces, man is hitherto balked. Numbers of instruments exist for measuring the force and direction of earthquake shocks, but these can be made of little practical use; for we have seen that the vibrations travel from forty to one hundred and fifty miles a minute, according to the nature of the soil. Hence, could we know a certain shock would travel around the world, it would not be possible, after it was first felt, to send warning ahead in time to be of any especial value. But we have seen that unusual disturbances of this sort are confined to certain regions, and are of constant recurrence; while in other lands, they are almost unknown. So any one understands pretty well what risks he runs in any particular district.

The Chinese were the first to invent a seismometer, or instrument for ascertaining the force and direction of any shock. Their apparatus consists of an upright pillar bearing a number of dragons’ heads--each one holding a ball in its mouth. So any slight tilting or vibration of the pillar would cause a ball to drop on the side toward which the shock travelled. The distance to which the ball was thrown served as a rude measure of the force.

Equally simple is Mallet’s contrivance--a number of cylinders of equal heights and different bases, placed upon a sanded surface. The more violent the shock, the larger the cylinder thrown down.

But observations of these vibrations, to be of use, must take note of the myriad tremors that will escape ordinary perceptions, or the powers of such rude instruments as the above. There are several sorts now used. Prof. Palmieri, of the Vesuvius Observatory, uses a delicate instrument, which records the slightest tremor on a dial-plate. The Italians have also applied the microphone to this work. The delicacy of this instrument may be imagined, when it is known that by its means a fly can be heard walking on the floor. So the slightest subterranean noise may be heard.

These instruments have taught us that the minor tremors increase in number and intensity as any unusual disturbance of Vesuvius approaches; just as the Signal Service can detect the gathering of a storm ere it actually bursts. Remembering also Bravard’s warning of Mendoza, in the last chapter, it is clear that in certain regions such observations can be made of practical value to the people at large.

One of the most ingenious apparatus for observing the vibrations of the soil is that constructed by M. d’Abbadie, at his observatory near the Pyrenees. A conical cavity forty-six feet deep is excavated in the solid rock. At the bottom is a basin of mercury. A long-focus lens over this reflects upon the surface of the ground the image of the metal below. The slightest tremor is carefully examined by a microscope. In short, this ingenious Frenchman has applied the reflecting telescope to the observation of the interior of the earth.

After all, the chief precautions must be of a different type. As already noticed, long observation has taught the Japanese and others that their safety depends mainly upon the construction of houses of the lightest type; when the sea wave is more to be dreaded than the shock. This is the general principle of building now adopted in countries where earthquakes are frequent; and doubtless the earthquake is partially responsible for the fact that many intelligent savage races have made no progress in architecture.

It should be noted, however, that the ancients believed that deep wells were a safeguard against earthquakes; such is the expression of several ancient writers. And in this connection we may mention the remarkable case of Quito, in Ecuador. Here we have a city of magnificent cathedrals, public edifices, and other lofty buildings, which have not in three centuries been overthrown by an earthquake. Yet it lies on the plateau on which stood Riobamba, where such terrible destruction was wrought in 1794, and at the base of the great volcano of Pichincha. It has been shaken time and again more severely than towns in the vicinity that have been totally destroyed. Yet it remains intact, and the people have an indifference to earthquakes that is astonishing. They attribute their safety to the fact of having deep cellars under every house. When we remember that tropical races are not, as a rule, a cellar building people, it may be that the idea is worthy of serious consideration. But many idle races of the tropics might, in lower grounds, merely exchange the results of an occasional earthquake for malaria-breeding pools.