New York Weather Bureau. 383 



Rain-gauges of three kinds are in use at the central station. 

 1. An ordinary 8-inch gauge of the Weather Bureau pattern, 

 which is the standard. 2. A Ferguson self-registering gauge, 

 which weighs the water or snow in the receiver by means of a 

 spring-balance, and automatically records the amount upon a 

 strip of paper wound around a cylinder placed beneath the gauge. 

 3. A Wild-Fuess electric recording gauge, whose registering 

 mechanism is inside the Engineering building. The guage has a 

 funnel about 14 inches in diameter at the top, which discharges 

 through a small tube into tilting buckets beneath. The buckets 

 are balanced in such a manner that when one is filled it tips 

 downward and empties, while the second bucket is brought under 

 the tube from the funnel, and in its turn is filled and tipped. 

 Each time this operation is completed, an electric circuit is made 

 through wires connected with the register in the building. The 

 record is made upon a strip of paper hanging vertically froon a 

 roll at the top of the case, and weighted at its lower end. The 

 electric circuit, operating an electro-magnet and ratchet-wheel, 

 drops the strip of paper about one-fiftieth of an inch at each tilt 

 of the bucket, so that the distanc^throiugh which the weight and 

 strip of paper falls measures the amount of rainfall. The time 

 register is made by a pen-arm moving horizontally across the 

 paper strip (about 1| inches wide) each hour, and sliding rapidly 

 back to its initial position at the end of the hour. Vv hen no' rain 

 is falling, these horizontal hour lines are separated by the making 

 of a contact within the clock, which moves the paper downward 

 through the same space due to a tilt of the bucket. In dry 

 weather, therefoi'e, the paper is ruled with parallel horizontal 

 lines about one-fiftieth of an inch apart; bult a rainfall separates 

 the lines by an amount corresponding tO' the amount of water 

 falling in an hour. 



