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Show er studies have not advanced much upon the Ptolemean of 21 centuries fiK. and were as unsatisfactory, unsatis-factory, at least In Germany, "where over f0 per cent of (lie weather forecasts were wrong." The lecturer thought that now, when the fatherland father-land was so sorely in need of money, the four millions annually spent on the "very unsatisfactory unsatisfac-tory prognosis" ought to be converted Inlo bread for the poor, and bullets for the enemy. FIRST TO FORECAST THE WEATHER. Professor Doctor Hellmann of the University of Berlin. In a recent lecture before the Astronomical society of Germany, referred the study of weather conditions back to the "first prognosticator," Claudius Clau-dius I'tolemeus, 150 B. C, the author of the Megale Syntaxis. better known ns the Ptolemean system of astronomy, the predecessor of the Copernican, our present-day system. Ptolemeus Issued annual almanacs, in which he forecast the weather by moon-months nnd seasons. He based his calculations on the two layers of nlr. the warmer and denser near the earth's sur face, and the colder and rarer further up; the colder descending from time to time on account of Its greater weight. Once the cold wave has descended de-scended In spiral form, the warmer air of the surface sur-face first moves toward the colder and thinner surface, sur-face, on the vacuum principle, untTl a vacuum is thus created In the warm zone with a consequent Inrush of the cold air. This process of cooling off the surface and supplying sup-plying fresh air takes place continually, and the cycle usually Is through its development in three days. Hence he calculated the weather on cycles of three days. Doctor Hellmann thought that the modern weath- |