How weather-wise are you? Can you see an easy winter in the bands of the woolly-bear caterpillar? What do you learn from the song of cricket on a warm summer's night? Will a mackerel sky keep you from that Sunday afternoon hike in the woods? When is a stiff breeze safe for sailing, and when does it run before a storm? Are those clouds thunderheads, or should you water the lawn yourself? Can you read tomorrow's weather from the mist over the moon the night before? What is the truth — if any — in the timeless folklore surrounding the swallow of spring and the groundhog's shadow and the ache in the bones of the old-timer?

The weather is always with us, and come rain or shine it is our business to get along with it. Toward that end Eric Sloane had written a book about the weather which is authoritative yet entertaining, scientific yet non-technical, factual yet wholly human in its approach.

No one is better qualified than Eric Sloane to deal with the weather. The sky is his religion and his philosophy. It has added meaning, variety and a spiritual excitement to his everyday life. It never ceases to heighten his powers of observation and, through them, his general understanding of all phases of nature. As a writer he has produced Clouds, Air and Wind, Skies and the Artist, and numerous articles on sailing and flying. As a famous weather-expert, he has prepared models for the U. S. Navy and designed the Hall of Atmosphere for the American Museum of Natural History. As a teacher he knows the value of a clear attractive text. And as an artist he has illuminated his text with 87 wonderful illustrations — 75 line cuts and 12 half-tones — almost a picture a page.

But it is the "human" side of the weather that makes the WEATHER BOOK such delightful reading. Line by line Eric Sloane glosses the homely old weather jingles like —

Red sky at night,
Sailor's delight;
Red sky in the morning,
Sailors take warning.

— jingles which are often quoted, seldom understood, and never before explained in this manner. Eric Sloane draws from the weather-observations of great men from King Alfred to Benjamin Franklin. He interprets the maxims of Gluocester fishermen and Maine rock-farmers. He describes informally how the weather "makes up," how a weather-map dramatizes the vast interplay of climatic forces, how the clouds are symptoms of weather present and warnings of a change to come.

He explains isobars, cold fronts and warm fronts, air masses and line-squalls just as he did for the Air Force. You can learn the mechanics of rainbows, waterspouts, the Aurora Borealis and St. Elmo's light — the weird silhouetting glow which is so much a part of the superstitious legends of the sea. And always the emphasis is upon how the reader can recognize these clues and forecast the weather for himself.

If you are weather-wise, ERIC SLOANE'S WEATHER BOOK will be a valuable companion for your sailing, flying, and outdoor activities in general; and if you want to be weather-wise, it will introduce you properly to the world of information and inspiration that is always waiting in the sky.

From the dust jacket