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CHAPTER X
CLIMATE AND WEATHER

Climate is a Theory. Weather is a condition.

Or, to make it clearer to the reader, Climate is a Hypothesis and Weather is a Reductio ad Absurdum. This explains why it invariably snows for the first time in years whenever one goes to California.

What is the Weather for?

Everything in Nature is designed to contribute to the needs or pleasures of Mankind.

From the tree of the forest we get the wood from which the nutmeg is made, the wood-alcohol for our Scotch high-ball and the pulp for our newspaper, which, in turn, is transmuted to leather for the soles of our soldiers’ boots.

From the sands of the sea we make sugar for sweetening our coffee – that mysterious beverage, the secret of whose manufacture has never been revealed.

From the cotton plant comes the woolen under-garment and the soldier’s blanket.

From the lowly cabbage springs the Havana Perfecto, with its gold and crimson band, and from the simple turnip is distilled the golden champagne, without which so many lives will now be empty.

Even the humble straw has its uses – to indicate the trend of the air current and for the stuffing of the life-preserver.

What then is the use of the Weather?

Supposing you have made a globe and put some people upon it to live. What would you do to make them feel at home?

You would give them something to talk about.

Just so – the Weather was designed to furnish a universal topic of conversation for Man.

Without the Weather, 999,999 out of 1,000,000 conversations would die in their infancy.

In the first geography book we learn from Moses how and of what the Weather was made.

Since then, nothing has been so much talked about as the Weather, and in nothing has so little advance been made.

QUESTIONS

Is it notoriety that makes the Weather-Vane?

Where does the Winter-Resort in Summer? And why?

How many litres of champagne can be extracted from the cube-root of one turnip?

What did the Weather do to get herself so talked about?

CHAPTER XI
LAND AND WATER

The terrestrial Globe is pleasingly tinted in blue, pink, yellow and green.

The blue portion is called Water and is inhabited by oysters, clams, submarines, lobsters and turtles, besides delightful schools of fishes and whales.

The pink, yellow and green portions are called Land and are alive with human beings and other animals and vegetables.

Besides the animals and vegetables there are mountains, table-lands, rivers, forests and lakes.

In former times mountains were used as protective barriers. Today they serve as monuments to Public Men for whom they are named (See Presidential Range), and country seats for retired Grocers and Fishmongers.

Showing comparative height of principal peaks. – Reading from left to right: Mt. Washington – Jefferson – Lincoln – Cleveland – Roosevelt – Wilson.

Note: – At the moment this picture was taken a war cloud drifted over the last two peaks. – Until the cloud passes it will be impossible to ascertain their altitudes.

Rivers are the most curious and interesting form of Water.

Though seldom as shallow, they are as lengthy and involved as Congressional speeches, and have to be curled into the most ludicrous shapes to get them into the countries where they belong.

The first thing a river does after rising is to betake itself as fast as it can to the nearest River-Bed, in which it remains for the rest of its days.

The largest river in the world is the Amazon, named after the single-breasted suffragette of ancient times.

QUESTIONS

How many rivers can get into one river-bed?

Why is a Congressman?

 
When Noah saw the flood subside,
“The world is going dry!” he cried,
“So let us all, without delay,
Fill up against a drouthy day.”
 

CHAPTER XII
THE DISCOVERY OF THE WORLD

In the first geography we are told of a young married couple who were cast into the world for a pomological error on their part, about 4000 B.C.

Some seventeen centuries later, the world was lost sight of in a deluge.

It was re-discovered by a navigator named Noah who, though barely six hundred years old, was the commander of a sea-going menagerie.

Commander Noah, after cruising about for twelve months and ten days, landed from his zoölogical water-wagon upon a precipitous Asiatic Jag called Ararat on the twenty-seventh of February, 2300 B.C.

CHAPTER XIII
THE HABITABLE GLOBE

The term “Habitable Globe” was doubtless invented by some Celestial Humorist who had never visited this planet.

People live on it, to be sure, but they have no choice. There is nowhere else to live.

The Giddy Globe …⁵

… Quite so. Suppose we consider the Globe as an Apartment House.

We are told it was finished in six days. No wonder it is faultily constructed.

The Heating Apparatus is out of date. The apartments nearest to the Radiator are insufferably hot, those farthest away unbearably cold, and those between too changeable for comfort.

The Water Supply is unreliable. In some apartments, great numbers perish every year from thirst.

In the cellar there is a munition factory where, in defiance of regulations, there are stored High Explosives. These blow up from time to time, causing great damage and loss of life among the tenants.

The janitor is a disobliging old person who has been there since the house was started and holds his job, in spite of incessant complaints. When asked to hurry, he fairly crawls and, when people want him most to stay, nothing can stop him.

His name is Tempus.

CHAPTER XIV
THE TENANTS

The first tenants (as before stated) were a young couple who had been compelled to leave a more luxurious apartment because children were not allowed, though animals of all kinds, even snakes, were tolerated.

On the whole, the Globe is anything but a model Apartment House. Each family considers itself the only respectable one in the building and they are constantly squabbling for the possession of the most desirable rooms.

The tenants of the different stories, originally of one colour, have been tanned according to their proximity to the Solar Stove. They come in five shades of fast colours – Black, Brown, Yellow, Red and White, – the White being farthest away from the Stove.

There are also some brighter colours, which are not guaranteed, – varying from the chromatic discord of the post-impressionist Savage to the delicate rose-pink of the Perfect Lady.

This last is the most delectable of all – but, alas, it is the one that fades most quickly.

CHAPTER XV
RACE

All the Families agree that the tenants of the Globe should be of one uniform shade.

Each Family, however, thinks that his own particular shade is the only fitting one for the Perfect Human Being.

To that end he spends a large part of his time in scheming how to get rid of all the other tints.

All of which is a great waste of centuries! Old Tempus the Janitor has always settled the Tint question with his Solar Stove and always will.

A week at the seashore in August ought to convince anyone of the efficiency of the Solar Tint Factory. In the tan of the surf bather is locked up the secret of Race Colouration.

And yet there are some Great and Wise Ones who believe that Civilization (with the assistance of Mr. Marconi and Mr. Rolls H. Royce and a few others) will bring the Race Families into such close relationship that they will eventually be all blended into one harmonious Neutral Tint!

A pale mauve World! One tint, one religion, one food, one dress, one Drink, one everything.

How appalling! And think of the moment when it is to be decided once and forever which it is to be – Blonde or Brunette!

Oh those Wise and Great Ones!