STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 235 



forces and the phenomena they produce, operating at all times as a great 

 heater and a great conductor, intensifying its heating power when dry, 

 and its conducting power when wet, or when denuded of its forests, or 

 widely stripped and strapped with huge iron rails and wires by the hands 

 of men. For we now are beginning to know how great a power even a 

 small wire caa|convey over indefinite distances. 



Without mie attention to well known as well as to still unknown facts 

 of this kind, it seems to me impossible to rationally account for the 

 apparent massing and intensifying of storms and drouths within the past 

 century, and the redistribution of rain over the Egyptian deserts in the 

 present and the past, and over our own in these modern days : facts 

 commonly ascribed to cycles of change, but these cycles as well as other 

 things must have some adequate cause. 



From this general and imperfect survey it would seem probable, if 

 not certain, that the actions and reactions of the whole vast costfios affect 

 the climatic changes on our globe — all that is done in the physical world 

 by either God or man. And nations and communities of men must heed 

 it or ultimately starve of their own folly, as many before them have done. 



It may seem incredible to some that the meteorology of the oceans 

 have been more thoroughly and profoundly studied and charted and 

 made known than that of the lands, through our indefatigable Naval and 

 Marine Service. On land we observe and report on mainly only one of 

 the four great primal sources of influence, namely, the Aerial, or the 

 movements, density or pressure and moisture of the atmosphere, and that 

 for but a small part of the entire circuit of the globe in any single lati- 

 tude. Commander Maury's earnest desire and efforts to complete the 

 circuit of observation for our own latitude cannot be too deeply appre- 

 ciated or too soon consummated ; nor can we too soon take under our 

 notice those varying conditions of the earth, as hot or cold, snow-clad or 

 bare, wet or dry, much as sailors do the analogous conditions of the seas, 

 and which all men know do more or less affect the great problems on 

 land. I am aware that the labor implied in any solid and practical 

 advance in this science is prodigious, implying the united effort of the 

 human race to consummate it, and that our progress must be slow at best. 

 True, much has already been done; but until both our sphere and our 

 methods of observation on land are enlarged and improved I see little 

 chance for a science of storms that can be of any great practical use to 

 the farmer and the horticulturist. The leaders of these industries should 

 throw their whole influence in favor of such a consummation. 



Still, it must be confessed that meteorology is no worse off in these 

 regards than many of our other so-called sciences ; for when we were all 

 just about to get ready to hatch PoUiwogs out of Protolasm, and develop 

 them up into first-class poets, philosophers and presidents of republics, 

 along comes Prof. Tyndall, in the last Fortnightly Review, and assures 

 us that "Science has not solved, nor is it likely to solve, the problem of 

 the universe ; while the connection of body and soul is as insoluble as 

 ever; and that the same ban of exclusion ought to fall upon the theory 

 of evolution." So nothing is now left for us to do but to burn up our 



