UIHistories Project: A History of the University of Illinois by Kalev Leetaru
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Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871 [PAGE 165]

Caption: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871
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15T sure a hard'Hfttqr, suitably provide for and insure all things needful against it, % * To be sure||ihe Indian, or the Englishman, or the German, who should reasOT only from the fowl in his own range or yard, or the shucks in his own field, or the springs and streams in his own county, would reason from a basis altogether too narrow, and be as likely to miss the mark, in many cases, as to hit it. And this suggests to me our great and urgent need of two special things—a daily or weekly report of the guagje-hight of the water in all our large rivers, which would show the general condition of the whole country as regards its wetness or its drought; a daily report of the advance of the snow line along our northern borders in the fall of the year, and especially of the width and reach of those jutting promontories of snow, like the last great storm, thrown down over areas more or less wide, by the apparent dip and sudden commingling of the great air currents overhead. The cost of all this would be but very little, and, if well done, would enable us to so far forecast the coming season as to lay our plans with some degree of intelligence, and save the country millions of money. As it is now, millions of men either rest upon their oars or work with great fear and hesitation after a certain season of the year, because they fear every day that all their plans are liable to be suddenly interrupted and cut short. Give us such items as the above, and give us a good system of storm signals, already inaugurated by the government, for each county, and can it be doubtful that it would save the country untold millions of money, and of lost time, often more valuable than money? Even with such meagre reports as now get into the papers, an intelligent man can, greatly to his advantage, forecast the general character of our coming winters. There really is no more mystery about it than there is about the wind that comes in at the bottom and goes out at the top of the door-crack; and this whole movement of the general drift of these currents depends exactly and inevitably on the same principle. Set a cake of ice or snow over the top door-crack, and the whole motion will be for a time reversed. A very simple apparatus would show this whole thing to the eye of the learner. The peculiar function of our thunder storms, in breaking up our long droughts, needs some particular notice here. It is often truly remarked that the whole tendency of these greater air currents, before described, are such, in our climate, that when it begins to rain it can never stop, and when it stops raining it can never begin again. This would be literally true, were it not for the swing ol the sun from north to south