Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/616

608, and May, which by common acclaim is one of the most delightful of the calendar, should present a number surpassed only by sweltering August, it is not easy to see. Yet such is the case for the five years covered' by this study, and similar conditions have been demonstrated by other students of the subject. Morselli, in his exhaustive treatise for the European nations, finds that for thirty-two separate studies made by him the maximum numbers were in June eighteen times and in May eight times. In explanation of the fact he says, "Suicide is not influenced so much by the extreme heat of the advanced summer season as by the early spring and summer, which seize upon the organism not yet acclimatized and still under the influence of the cold season." There is little doubt that the end of winter brings with it a depleted condition of vitality, both nervous and physical; yet I am inclined to think that the

fact can not wholly account for the great increase in the later spring months. In the conclusion of this paper the condition is again alluded to, and at this point I would simply call attention to the fact that the increase comes with the season of the year when rejuvenating Nature is in her brightest mood.

—The terms 'clear’ 'partly cloudy' and 'cloudy,' as used by the Weather Bureau's characterization of weather states, have a definite and technical meaning. The first is used to designate days on which the sun is obscured for three-tenths or less of the hours from sunrise to sunset; the second from fourtenths to seven-tenths of that period; and the third eight-tenths or more. (See Fig. 2.)

Under precipitation I have considered separately days which were