STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 423 



Maury, when, in the full flush of the success of his great system of meteor- 

 ological observation at sea, to have the system extended to the land: 'In 

 my humble way,' said he, ' I have been advocating the establishment of 

 a similar system of weather reports and telegraphic warnings, not only for 

 the shipping, but for the farmers also of the United States.' Shades of 

 Maury, look down upon us now, and lend the influence of your great name 

 to help regain for your beloved shipping some small share of the benefits 

 of the great system that you did so much toward organizing! 



" I want to live to see the day when there is a first-order light at Hat- 

 teras Shoal, Mantanella Reef, and Hillsboro Inlet, in addition to the mag- 

 nificent lights we have already, and when weather forecasts at least as good 

 as those signaled off to shipping at Hongkong or in the Bay of Bengal 

 are available to navigators at every prominent lighthouse and headland of 

 the shores of the great Bay of North America, and I expect to do it, too. 

 I intended to have read extracts from at least a few hurricane reports from 

 vessels of our own build, and flying the stars and stripes — the thrilling 

 experience of the steamship Knickerbocker, or Manhattan (two good old 

 New York names), in these great hurricanes off our coast — but time forbids. 

 I cannot forbear, however, from reiterating the fact that it is to an Ameri- 

 can that we owe the discovery of the law of storms in almost all the 

 perfection and simplicity that we know it to-day — a discovery that has 

 revolutionized meteorology and resulted in the saving of thousands of lives 

 and millions of dollars' worth of property at sea. The empirical laws of 

 Kepler in astronomy, the grand results in biology of Darwin's vast accu- 

 mulation of facts, and the deduction therefrom in the hands of that great 

 master, find their parallel in the thorough and painstaking work in col- 

 lecting data, the scientific skill and insight in their consideration and com- 

 prehension, and the lifetime's devotion to this one subject, of Mr. Redfield, 

 of New York." 



