STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 421 



from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, moving toward the Atlantic at 

 the rate of six hundred miles a day, in the form of a great arched squall, 

 whose front was more than a thousand miles in length, in front south- 

 easterly winds drawing supplies of warm, moist ocean air from far down 

 within the tropics, and in rear a long battalion of cold, northeasterly 

 gales, carrying temperature below the freezing point far down the line into 

 Louisiana and Mississippi. The speaker dwelt upon the enormous increase 

 in the energy of the storm when it reached the Atlantic, the terrific com- 

 bat between Arctic and Gulf Stream forces, and the obstruction encountered 

 by the center of the line in the form of a stationary anti-cyclone about 

 Newfoundland. A track chart, giving the tracks of vessels, and a barome- 

 ter diagram, illustrating the fluctuation of the barometer at selected posi- 

 tions ashore and at sea, were discussed, and it was stated that one hundred 

 and thirty-eight vessels were blown ashore, sunk, or damaged along the 

 coast of the United States north of Hatteras. Off the coast, west of the 

 fortieth meridian, some twenty vessels were sunk or abandoned, among 

 them the gallant New York pilot boats, Phantom and Enchantress, and 

 the yacht Cythera, with all her brave crew — friends and fellow yachtsmen of 

 his present audience and old members of the Seawanhaka Club. Among 

 the abandoned vessels was the American schooner W. L. White, and this 

 derelict vessel commenced a long, aimless voyage across the Atlantic, at the 

 mercy of the winds and currents, with no hand at the helm by day and no 

 lights at night to warn navigators of their danger. Ten months and ten 

 days later, after wandering more than five thousand miles, she stranded on 

 one of the little rocky islands of the Hebrides, off the northwest coast of 

 Scotland, and has thus completed the last act of this great ocean tragedy. 

 The following conclusions were quoted from the speaker's monograph 

 description of the great storm, recently published by the Hydrographic 

 Office: "It has enforced in most unmistakable terms the importance, not 

 only to our extensive shipping interests, but to the people of all our great 

 seaboard cities, of the establishment of telegraphic signal stations at out- 

 lying points off the coast; at St. Johns (or Cape Race) and Sable Island, 

 to watch the movement of areas of high barometer, upon which that of the 

 succeeding 'low' so largely depends; and at Bermuda, Nassau, and various 

 points in the West Indies and Windward Islands, that we may be fore- 

 warned of the approach and progress of the terrific hurricanes which, sum- 

 mer after summer, bring devastation and destruction along our Gulf and 

 Atlantic Coast, and of whose fury this great storm is an approximate ex- 

 ample and a timely reminder. Moreover, there are other important objects 

 to be gained, in addition to the better forecasting of stormy weather off our 

 coasts and along the transatlantic routes. Every edition of the Pilot Chart 

 records the latest reported position of numerous derelict vessels and other 

 dangers to navigation — submerged wrecks, buoys adrift, icebergs, and 

 masses of field ice. But at present such reports are necessarily several 

 days old, and the present positions of these dangerous obstructions must 

 be roughly estimated, allowing for their probable drift in the interval of 

 time that has elapsed since the report was made. There are recorded, also, 

 the probable limits of frequent fog for the ensuing month and the regions 

 where fog was most frequently reported during the preceding month. But 

 general averages only give the regions where fog is most likely to be en- 

 countered ; they do not and cannot attempt to state whether or no there 

 will be a fog at a given place at a given time. But scientific research and 

 practical inventive genius, advancing hand in hand for the benefit of man- 

 kind, have discovered not only the laws governing the formation of the 

 dense banks of fog that have made the Grand Banks dreaded by naviga- 



