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Show vorable climate for producing tha necessaries of life than in this corn belt, of which Iowa Is the center. Des Molne.3 Tribune. formation about -weather happenings happen-ings has been gathered In this and other countries, It may be possible pos-sible to predict the next swing toward dryness and the next swing toward wetness with real accuracy, so far as any large area Is concerned. Meantime we here In Iowa may rest on the fact that drastic changes in climate do not seem ever to come rapidly, and that several times In the past this region has known prolonged pro-longed dry spells, only to emerge again. Into compensating wet spells. Nowhere on earth has there been, within the period of wdiite men's knowledge, a more dependably fa- WORLD IN GRIP OF DRY PHASE? While -we are speculating about the possible causes of dry weather In our own region, we may note, for whatever it may signify, that in England they are giving serious thought to problems caused by falling fall-ing of the water levels In streams, a phenomenon that has been developing develop-ing for a couple of years now. That may be mere coincideuce, but on the other hand it may suggest that conditions con-ditions affecting a far wider area than just our group of a half dozen dozen Mid-Western states are at work. It may be that the areas which now seem to be particularly wet, not dry, such as some parts of the "East," are the exceptions, and that either the whole world or at least the northern hemisphere is in the dry phase of a long time cycle. Everybody now knows, of course, that radical climatic changes do take place. That the ice caps at the poles have advanced and retreated Is proven by the evidence of our hills and valleys and lakes and soil. Even some of the ancients surmised that there had been great climatic changes in Europe, by which the cold in central and northern Europe had greatly moderated. But these changes come over such long periods as to mean nothing to any single generation genera-tion of men. Whether there really are definite cycles, subject eventually to measurement, meas-urement, whereby weather conditions condi-tions vary within a relatively brief period of years says a fi fteen-y ear-wet ear-wet to dry cycle or a forty-year wet to dry cycle it not yet known. But there seems reason enough for even a nonscientific person to suspect It. A hundred years hence, when a vastly greater amount of reliable in- |