WARD PLANS A NEW STUDY OF CLIMATIC CONDITIONS IN U.S.

The need for a comprehensive test and reference book on the world's climates was explained by R. DeC. Ward '89, professor of Climatology, when asked by a CRIMSON reporter to what use he intended to put the Milton Award which he recently received.

"Such a book", Professor Ward said, "is in constant demand in almost all scientific work. Physicians, geologists, geographers, botanists, and geologists, to name a few, need climactic information continually in the different phases of their work.

"In 1883 Dr. Julius Bann, then of the University of Vienna, published his Handbuch der Klimatologie' which subsequently went through two more editions. This book was accepted for many years as the final authority on the field it covered.

"Tables of climatic data, however, inevitably become inaccurate," Professor Ward pointed out, "and the time has come for a new and more comprehensive book. Professor Hann is dead, but Professor Koppen, who worked with the older man for years and is at present the leading figure in the older school of European meteorologists, has undertaken the work. He has selected some 25 meteorologists to collaborate with him.

"I have been asked to write the chapters on North America and the West Indies, and have secured the cooperation of Dr. C. F. Brooks '12 of Clark University in carrying out this heavy task. We two cannot possibly gather all necessary data, and it is here that the Milton Award will be of great assistance. Through it we have already secured two assistants, one to go to Mexico City, the other to Toronto, to gather information and copy data in those cities. The Milton Fund will also cover expenses for the drawing of new charts and diagrams. This award, in fine, will make possible a research in climatology which otherwise would probably have not been undertaken."