10 Ninth Annual Report of the 



records from city water boards, agricultural experiment stations, 

 agricultural journals, courts of law, physicians, engineers, teachers, 

 and from many other sources which need not be detailed here. 



Although the limits of our appropriation necessarily restrict the 

 work of the central office mainly to the routine of maintaining and 

 operating the service throughout the State, substantial progress has 

 been made in the reduction of the complete system of observations 

 which have been carried on at this station since 1879 ; and it is 

 intended to publish the results of this work at the close of the twenty 

 years' period 1879-1898. The laws of rainfall in this State are also 

 being systematically investigated, and the results thus far attained 

 will be found in the course of this report. 



The experimental work contemplated in the act creating the 

 Bureau has not been neglected, as will be noted on a subsequent 

 page. And in this connection, I wish to make special mention of 

 the new- hydraulic laboratory of the College of Civil Engineering of 

 Cornell University, the most elaborate and extensive one in the 

 world, and which is now nearing completion. It provides means 

 for accurately gauging the flow of Fall Creek, whose water-shed of 

 117 square miles is to be topographically surveyed during the 

 coming spring. An admirable opportunity will thus be afl^orded for 

 determining the relation of rainfall to stream-flow, the rates of 

 percolation and evaporation and many other subjects of great prac- 

 tical importance. It may, however, be desirable to state that the 

 work of this Bureau is in no way related to Cornell Univei*sity. 

 This false impression exists in some quarters, and is prejudicial to 

 the interests, at least, of the Bureau. The connecting link of both 

 institutions lies in the slender fact that the University furnishes, 

 free of charge, the quarters of the Bureau, and as a seat of learning 

 lends itself admirably to our purposes, owing to the access the 

 oflacers have to its equipments, advice, and pecuHarly advantageous 

 conditions here presented for meteorological study. 



