E-text prepared by Steven desJardins and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original 72 illustrations. See 22156-h.htm or 22156-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/1/5/22156/22156-h/22156-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/1/5/22156/22156-h.zip) U. S. Service Series. THE BOY WITH THE U. S. WEATHER MEN by FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER With Seventy-two Illustrations from Photographs [Illustration: Publisher's logo] Boston Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. [Illustration: THE FUNNEL OF DEATH. Photograph of a tornado in Kansas, taken less than a minute before it struck the point where the camera had stood. (This is one of the best tornado photographs in the world and has not been retouched.) _Courtesy of Geo. S. Bliss, U.S. Weather Bureau, Philadelphia, Pa._] Published, September, 1917 Copyright, 1917 By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. All rights reserved THE BOY WITH THE U. S. WEATHER MEN Norwood Press Berwick & Smith Co Norwood, Mass. U. S. A. PREFACE The savage fury of the tempest and the burning splendor of the sun in all ages have stirred the human race to fear and wonder. All the great stories and legends of the world began as weather stories. The lightnings were the thunderbolts of Jove, the thunder was the rolling of celestial chariot-wheels, and the rains of spring were a goddess weeping for her daughter, Nature, held a captive in the icy prison of Winter. We know a great deal more about the forces of the Weather than the ancients did, yet we know but little still. The hurricane does not come unheralded to our shores, the freezing grip of a cold wave is forecast in time to enable us to fight it, the lightning is tamed by the metal finger we thrust upward to the sky. But the tornado sweeps its funnel of death over our cities in spite of all we do, the cloudburst falls where it will, and rivers rush to flood with the melting of the snows upon the distant mountains. There is no battle greater than the battle with the Weather, which is both our enemy and our ally. Death and disaster are the price we pay for ignorance. Great victories have been won by knowledge. Galveston's sea-wall dared and defeated the hurricane, the levees of the Mississippi have held captive many a flood, and our myriad spears of defence have snatched at the power of the lightning flash and hurled it harmlessly to the ground.