THE BLUE HILL OBSERVATORY. 303 



oughly independent attitude and scientific spirit enabled it to make 

 usefulness and not policy its watchword, but it has also permitted it 

 to improve the older traditions of American meteorology, by adding to 

 them the best features of European meteorology. 



So far as concerns the regular routine work of observation of the 

 purely local atmospheric conditions made at the Blue Hill Observatory, 

 it is impossible to realize its importance to American meteorology under 

 the light of present conditions alone. One must go back twenty years 

 to the conditions existing in the early eighties to properly appreciate its 

 innovating character. Concerning the extra routine work, such as the 

 studies of the upper air conditions and their application to atmospheric 

 mechanics, no comment seems necessary further than to mention the 

 fact that this work occupies a prominent position in the front line of 

 scientific advance in this direction. We have had a recent example of 

 this in the discoveries attending Mr. Clayton's studies of eclipse 

 meteorology, in which important extensions of Ferrels' cold centered 

 cyclone have in all likelihood been made which will greatly aid in the 

 solution of some hitherto unexplained meteorological problems. 



The importance attached by scientists to the work of the Blue Hill 

 Observatory is plainly indicated by the numerous long and appreciative 

 reviews and notices of this work which have appeared in such general 

 scientific journals as 'Nature' and 'Science,' and such special journals as 

 the 'Meteorologische Zeitschrift' and the 'American Meteorological 

 Journal.' Probably not one of the long list of reports and other pub- 

 lications of the observatory has been passed by without printed com- 

 ment, and frequently a single paper has called forth several reviews. 

 Moreover the confidence with which this work has been received is 

 shown by the fact that the results have been freely used by subsequent 

 investigators. 



It is a noteworthy fact that by taking the initiative in the 

 systematic sounding or exploration of the upper air by means of kites, 

 the Blue Hill Observatory has added one more feature to the already 

 long list of American pioneer contributions to meteorology, among 

 which may be mentioned, Loomis' storm and weather maps, Espy's 

 dynamical theories, Ferrels' theories of the atmospheric circulation, 

 and the more complete extension of the application of weather knowl- 

 edge to practical affairs by the Signal Service and Weather Bureau. 



The official publications of the observatory are: the earlier annual 

 reports published separately and the later ones published since 1887 

 in the 'Annals of the Observatory of Harvard College,' special memoirs 

 and discussions forming an important feature of these reports ; monthly 

 and annual summaries of the climatic observations, which were mani- 

 folded and distributed locally up to 1896, and some of which the 

 'U. S. Monthly Weather Eeview' and the monthly report of the New 



