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THE conservative behavior of Weather lureau thermometers during the heated term has always ,been viewed with a certain degree of dissatisfaction by the non-scientific 'portion of the American public. After a particularly torrid day in an environment of brick and mortar, asphalt and steaming humanity, the wilted citizen, whose sensations have registered a temperature of 100 or more, feels aggrieved at a newspaper weather report recording an official maximum of 85. His only COlsolation was, until recently, the thermometer at the corner drug-store. This imposing-Iooking instrument usually soared nearly or quite high enough to confirm his personal estimate of the day's weather; especially if it happened to be hung in such a position as to bask in unobstructed sunshine during a part of the day_ Some If these drug-store thermometers are fearfully and wonderfully made. As adjuncts of a quasi-scientific branch of trade they enjoy a certain prestige-along with the charts, also affected by drug-stores, in which the professional long-range weather prophet outlines the meteorological conditions for a month in advance on the ,basis of the moon's phases, the configuration of the planets, or the mlxima and minima of sun-spots. At meteorological observatories the instruments are exposed in such a manner as to register, as nearly as the general surroundings will admit, the natural rather than the artificial weather. If, as in thp case of most stations of the national 'Veather Bmeall, the location happens to ue the heart of a city or town, the ideal, not wholly attainable, is to record the conditions that “would prevail if the buildings and pavements were not there. The abnormal weather of a city street is of no importance in gaging the weather of the country at large, either with a view to compiling climatic statistics or to providing information of current conditions for the use of the scientific forecaster. On the other hand, the demand of the “man in the street” for an accurate reeord of the eonditions prevailing in his own little sphere is nat- Fig. I. -German weather kiosks in the making. ural and legitimate; and the off