COMMITTEES ON BEHALF OF THE GOVERNMENT 301 
Messrs. Morgan, Herbert and Wait, reported on the Weather 
Service as follows: *” 
“ As the result of their investigation of the Signal Service Bureau, the under- 
signed respectfully submit to Congress the following bill, and recommend its 
passage: 
“© A pill to establish a Weather Bureau in the War Department, and for other 
purposes. 
“© Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
States of America in Congress assembled, That on the first day of July, eighteen 
hundred and eighty-six, the Signal Service Bureau shall be abolished, and a Bureau 
to be styled the Weather Bureau shall be established, to which shall be transferred 
the records and property of every kind now in charge of the Signal Service, except 
arms and other military equipments and stores, all of which shall be turned over to 
the proper officers of the Army. 
“« Src. 2. That the Weather Bureau shall be organized as a civil establish- 
ment to promote meteorological investigations, and shall be under the direction 
of the Secretary of War.’ 
“ JoHN T. Morcan, 
“ Hitary A. HERBERT, 
“Joon T. Warr.” 
Regarding the Coast and Geodetic Survey, Messrs. Herbert 
and Morgan made the following minority report: 
“The undersigned favor the transfer of the Coast Survey proper to the Hydro- 
graphic Office of the Navy Department. We mean to include not only the 
hydrography, that is, soundings, etc., now done by naval officers under the 
direction of the civilian head of the Coast Survey, but all topography upon 
nautical charts, including such triangulation as is incident thereto. We believe 
the Navy would execute this work more economically and speedily, and therefore 
more effectively, than it is now being done.” 148 
“So far as a further survey of our coast is concerned, there seems to be a 
propriety in transferring that work to the Navy Department. ‘The other duties 
now in charge of this establishment, if they cannot be profitably attached to some 
existing Department or other Bureau, should be prosecuted under a law exactly 
defining their scope and purpose, and with a careful discrimination between the 
scientific inquiries which may properly be assumed by the Government and those 
which should be undertaken by State authority or by individual enterprise.” 1° 
“7 Op. cit., pp. 63-64. 
“S Op. cit., p. 66. 
“° Report, p. 80. 
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