58 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



SUMMER TIME LEGISLATION. 



The daylight saving law, which makes the hours of business an 

 hour earlier between specified dates in April and October, has im- 

 posed a distinct extension of the hours of duty of Weather Bureau 

 men, and otherwise has increased the work at stations. This outcome 

 of the legislation resulted inevitably, because on the one hand it was 

 most undesirable for this j^ear at least to make a double break and 

 discontinuit}' in the standard series of our regular meteorological 

 observations, which for the last 30 years have uninterruptedly been 

 made at the hours of 8 a. m. and 8 p. m., mean seventy-fifth meridian 

 time. On the other hand, it was equally undesirable and more im- 

 practicable to issue our daily bulletins, forecasts, maps, warnings, 

 and crop weather information an hour later in the day than the 

 public had been accustomed to receive the same. 



The only escape from one or the other of these consequences lay in 

 preserving the continuity of the old records by continuing to make 

 observations for the record at the same absolute hours as in the past, 

 and making and telegraphing another observation at the same hour 

 as usual by the clock but one hour earlier by actual mean time of the 

 seventy-fifth meridian. This course was ordered and compelled the 

 men to be on duty one hour later in the evening than otherwise, 

 simply to secure the night observation and at least for this year to 

 round out the meteorological record, much of the value of which 

 for all scientific work depends upon its uninterrupted continuity 

 under identical conditions for the longest possible period of time. 



The daylight saving scheme has doubtless come to stay, and 

 meteorological services must soon adjust their program of observa- 

 tions and public service in a way that will harmonize the conflicting 

 consequences of the present wide adoption of the so-called daylight- 

 saving plan. The suggestion to this end already considered in Eng- 

 land and France, that the time of observation be advanced one hour 

 throughout the year, encounters more serious difficulties in the United 

 States than in western Europe, because of the great range of longi- 

 tude covered by the system of stations now making simultaneous 

 observations. 



WAR ACTIVITIES. 



The extensions of the work and cooperation of the bureau with 

 direct reference to military service, inaugurated a year ago and men- 

 tioned in the last annual report, have been developed, strengthened, 

 and further extended. The bureau has contributed of its personnel 

 and otherwise aided the Chief Signal Officer through the Science and 

 Research Division in the formation of a meteorological unit which 

 now comprises a considerable number of officers and men on active 

 duty in Europe. Skilled forecasters, in cooperation with French 

 and English meteorologists, receive nightly telegrams containing 

 representative weather reports from the eastern districts of the 

 United States, Canada, and the Atlantic coast. These reports sup- 

 plement local observations over western Europe and the British 

 Isles. Men of the aerological corps make further local observations 

 with pilot balloons and other special equipment. These agencies, 

 largely directed and operated by Weather Bureau men now in mill- 



