“In the building of railroads,” says Mr. E. L. Wells, “many phases of climate are to be considered, including the probability of floods, deep snows, high winds, sand storms, etc. It is not long since a considerable length of railroad line in one of the Western States was found to be practically worthless because of having been built too near the bed of a stream and therefore being too much subject to damage from floods, so it was replaced by a line built higher up. The writer remembers two railroads entering the same town in one of the northern plains States, one of which is seldom blockaded, while the other is sometimes closed by snow for months at a time. In the former case the cuts are parallel to the wind, while in the latter the wind blows directly across the cuts. In operating railroads a knowledge of the climate is essential. This is particularly true in the shipment of perishable products, which may require icing or ventilation as a protection against high temperature, or insulation against cold. Not only is a knowledge of climatic conditions essential in taking precaution against loss in transportation, but weather records are playing an increasingly large part in the settlement of claims for products and property damaged in transit. The claim agents of the leading transportation companies and the traffic managers of the commission houses and producers’ associations keep complete files of climatological data, and a large percentage of claims for damaged goods, whether they be for a trainload of chilled bananas or for a traveling man’s samples ruined by rain, are now settled out of court on the basis of the weather records. Claims for car demurrage are often settled on the basis of the weather reports.” Detailed information concerning the effects of temperature on all sorts of food products, both in transportation and in storage, was collected by the Weather Bureau some years ago and published as the Bureau’s Bulletin No. 13.