(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
https://www.amazon.com/Climatic-Cycles-Tree-Growth-Issue-Nbsp/dp/B00A0KKK46?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B00A0KKK46
Douglass was born on July 5, 1867 in Windsor, Vermont, the son of the Reverend Malcolm Douglass and Sarah Hale. Spending his childhood in the comfortable surroundings of Episcopalian rectories in Vermont and Massachusetts, Douglass excelled in high school science and math courses and displayed an early interest in astronomy.
Douglass entered Trinity College (Hartford, Connecticut) in 1885, securing a student assistantship at the campus observatory a few months after his arrival. He graduated with a B. A. in 1889. Although Douglass had hoped to undertake graduate study, his father's death in 1887 made this a financial impossibility.
Douglass accepted a position as an assistant at the Harvard College Observatory in the fall of 1889. In late 1890 he was chosen to accompany a Harvard expedition to Arequipa, Peru, to establish an observatory in the Southern Hemisphere. He remained there for the next three years.
A few months after his return in the fall of 1893, Douglass accepted the position of principal assistant at the planned Lowell Observatory. Percival Lowell, a wealthy Boston financier and astronomer, decided to erect an observatory in the American Southwest to investigate the planet Mars, and sent Douglass to Arizona to survey potential sites for the installation. Early in 1894 Douglass forwarded his findings to Boston, where Lowell in April selected a mesa west of Flagstaff as the site of the observatory. Subsequently, Douglass assumed the duties of acting director at Flagstaff almost from the beginning, because Lowell spent relatively little time there. Over the next seven years Douglass directed an intensive study of Mars, the results of which Lowell used to support his theory of an intelligent Martian civilization. Lowell's forceful advocacy of this theory disturbed Douglass, who suggested that his employer restrict his writing to popularized science, which was clearly Lowell's greatest talent. In consequence of his challenges to Lowell's theory Douglass was dismissed from the observatory in July 1901. Responding to the pleas of his many friends, Douglass remained in Flagstaff for the next five years, teaching Spanish and history at Northern Arizona Normal School and working as a mineral assayer. He also served two terms as probate judge of Coconino County.
The added responsibility of marriage led Douglass to increase his efforts to secure academic employment, but he had no success until 1906, when he joined the University of Arizona faculty as assistant professor of physics. He later served as professor and chairman of physics and astronomy (1906-1937), acting president (1910-1911), and dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences (1915-1918). Douglass was enthusiastic about his new position, but he felt disappointed that the university in Tucson lacked the basic equipment for astronomical research. Over the next decade he drafted various plans for a suitable observatory and attempted to secure funding for the proposed facility.
In 1916 he finally obtained a $60, 000 gift from Lavinia Steward. The construction of the 36-inch reflecting telescope was completed in the late summer of 1922. It was named Steward Observatory and Douglass became its director. Shortly after his dismissal from the Lowell Observatory, Douglass had begun to study tree rings. Believing that sunspots influenced terrestrial weather, Douglass examined northern Arizona pines for variations in tree-ring width. By 1909 he found a clear relation between rainfall and tree growth, and discovered a cyclical variation of slightly more than eleven years, the same period displayed by sunspot cycles.
Although he spent the rest of his long life searching for a definitive relation between sunspots and weather, his work proved suggestive but inconclusive. In his attempt to obtain extensive tree-ring records, Douglass was limited by the absence of very old trees with the proper ring characteristics. Sequoias and redwoods, although quite old, did not display the patterned variation in tree-ring width between wet and dry years, which was the basis for Douglass's dating method. With the assistance of archaeologists, Douglass began examining beams and other wood artifacts from ancient ruins in the Southwest. By late July 1929 he had gathered and analyzed sufficient wood and charcoal specimens to construct a tree-ring record beginning in A. D. 700. Within five years, he extended the chronology back to A. D. 11, and thus provided his archaeological colleagues with a valuable tool for dating prehistoric ruins.
Douglass retired from the directorship of Steward Observatory in late 1937 (although he returned as acting director from 1942 to 1946), but quickly took on similar duties as director of the newly established Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona, a post he held until 1958. The two decades of his leadership established the facility as the center of dendrochronological research.
Douglass's health failed rapidly after retirement in 1958. He died on March 20, 1962, in Tucson, Arizona.
Douglass is best known as the person who established the principles of dendrochronology. He coined the name of that study when he began to collect tree specimens, believing that variations in the width of tree rings would show a connection between sunspot activity and the terrestrial climate and vegetation.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
On August 3, 1905, Douglass married Ida Whittington, a music teacher.
