REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 177 



activity the extent to which the information it collects and dis- 

 tributes can be used to advantage and profit is scarcely to be lim- 

 ited. In attempting to speak, therefore, of the extension of its 

 benefits during the past 16 years, it is not possible to do more than 

 to touch on the more striking features of its work. 



The benefits to be derived from its forecasts, warnings, and miscel- 

 laneous reports depend largely upon the extent to which the general 

 public has been educated in the use of the information furnished. 

 That there has been an increase of appreciation on the part of the 

 people of this country in this respect was fully brought out several 

 years ago when the "Weather Bureau made inquiry regarding the 

 uses to which weather information was applied. The replies re- 

 ceived showed numerous special applications of the information to 

 individual pursuits and industries that had not even been suspected 

 by the Weather Bureau. 



Since 1870 the Federal Government has maintained a service hav- 

 ing for its objects the forecasting of weather conditions throughout 

 the United States. During the first 20 years of its development the 

 work was conducted by .the Signal Corps of the Army, but in 1891 

 the service was reorganized and the present Weather Bureau was 

 established as a branch of the Department of Agriculture. 



With the inauguration of the meteorological service in 1870, under 

 the control of the War Department, there were established 25 regular 

 observation stations. In 189G-97 this number had been increased 

 to 131. At the present time the Weather Bureau has 193 regular 

 stations of the first order, which take and telegraph observations 

 twice daily. 



A further general idea of the development of the service may be 

 obtained from a comparison of the annual appropriations for its 

 maintenance. In 1870 the Secretary of War set aside the sum of ■ 

 $20,000 for the first year's work in maintaining the 25 stations then 

 established. In 189G-97 the annual appropriation for the Weather 

 Bureau was $883,772, while the sum appropriated by Congress for 

 the maintenance and operation of the Weather Bureau in all its 

 ramifications during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1913, was 

 $1,019,680. 



EXTENSIONS OF OBSERVATIONS AND FORECASTS. 



Prior to 1897 the forecaster had under observation twice each day 

 the atmospheric conditions over the area comprising the United 

 States and extreme southern Canada. At the outbreak of the 

 Spanish-American AVar in 1898 the field of observations was ex- 

 tended to include the West Indies, where the majority of the violent 

 tropical storms that devastate the southern coasts of the United States 



70481°— AGK 1012 12 



