222 THE YEAR-BOOK OF AGRICULTURE. 



a*k your ace to make tbem. The fields meteorological are large; there are many of 



them, and all that I do know about them is, thai there is in them might;/ harvests of many 

 s. .it-. Borne yean ago I commenced such a system for the sea as I am now advocating — and 

 as I now both Bee and feel the necessity of — for the land. After we had been at work a little 

 while and began t.i gather in a harvest of useful results by discovering new truths and facts, 

 Congress authorised the Secretary of the Navy to employ three small vessels of the navy to 

 aasist me in pert'ecting these discoveries and pushing forward investigations. 



"Now yon would have said, What two things can be more remote than nape to show which 

 way the winds blow, and a submarine telegraph across the Atlantic? Yet it seems that they 

 ape closely connected, for researches undertaken for the one are found to bear directly upon 

 the other. Among the early fruits gathered by pushing our discoveries, even with the slender 

 means afforded by Congress — for the secretary was authorized to let me have these three 

 small vessels only in case they should cost nothing — there is a promise of a submarine tele- 

 graph across the Atlantic. 



"One of the results of getting the wires across will be to place the farmers with their pro- 

 vision-markets and produce exactly half the distance in time — and time now seems to be the 

 only true measure of distance — from Europe that they now are. Let us illustrate the value 

 in one respect only of this telegraph to the farmers. A demand springs up in England for 

 breadatoffs, for instance. The news must now wait for the steamer to sail before it is ready 

 to come, and by the time she reaches our shores, and the produce can be sent forward, the 

 chief granaries of Europe have been ransacked, and the American dealer finds himself too 

 late in the market. But when that telegraphic plateau, which we have discovered in the 

 Atlantic, shall be threaded with the magnetic cable, the intelligence will be known in New 

 York, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and New Orleans as soon as it is in Liverpool. Straightway the 

 produce is put in motion, and instead of coming in 'the day after the fair,' as is now too 

 often the case, it will arrive with the young of the flood that comes rolling in from the East 

 to meet the demand. By this achievement, or by the achievements which these investigations 

 at sea have already accomplished in the shortening of voyages and saving of time, who have 

 been the greater gainers, the farmers or the merchants ? 



"Storms on land have a beginning and an end; that is, they commence at one place, and 

 frequently after several days' travel end at some other; at least, so it is held. What would it 

 be worth to the farmer, or the merchant, or to anybody, if he could know, with something 

 like certainty, the kind of weather he might always expect one, two, three, or more day- ahead ? 



"I think it not at all unlikely that such, to some extent at least, would be among the first 

 fruits of this system of observations that I am proposing. 



"Certain of the observers scattered over all parts of the country would probably be 

 required to make daily reports to the central office in Washington as to the weather, each for 

 his own Btation — ay at 9 a. m. This would soon enable us to determine the laws ( ,f progress 

 BS well a- the march of the various states of weather, such as gales, rain-. snow-storms, and 

 the like ; so that by knowing in what part of the country a storm had arisen, we should — 

 learning through the telegraph the direction it might take — be enabled to calculate it- rate of 

 travel, and to predict within a few hours the time it would arrive at different places on its 

 Hi f march : and knowing these, the telegraphic agency which the newspaper press of the 



Country has established here, would, without more ado or further cost, make the announce- 

 ment the next morning in all the papers of the land. 



'• I allude to this as an exemplification only of some of the first fruits ,,f the plan, T do 

 not suppose that we should lie able to telegraph in advance of every shower of rain : hut with- 

 out doubt the manh of the rains 1 1» n t are general can be determined iii time to give the peo- 



me portions of the country, at least) waning of their approach, 

 toh an on" [nixed here In Washington to oarry out the detaili of this plan 



i- already in existence, it was established by Mr. Calhoun when he was Bearetarj of War 

 and it i- under the control of the Burgeon-general of the Army. There the meteorolof 



tl.it are made at our military OOStS are disOU - M A Slid published; and one of the 



most valuable and interesting reports concerning the meteorology and climate- of the country 

 that has ever a] is now in course of publication there. Or such an office might be 



