1856.] Oii7' Climatic Vicissitudes. 85 



itself, concerning our prospects for weather. True, there have not been 

 wanting those who claimed to have discovered meteorological systems, by 

 the use of which the weather might be predicted ; and predictions were 

 ventured accordingly ; and the only deficiency in the systems seemed to 

 be, that their prophecies oftener failed than came to pass; a rather seri- 

 ous defect, it is true, but which, nevertheless, is all that the systems 

 lack of perfection ! The utmost that has, as yet, been accomplished in 

 the weather department, is the acquisition of a vast number of observa- 

 tions, made in dijBPerent parts of the world, upon the course of the winds, 

 the amount of rain, and the fluctuations of the barometer and thermo- 

 meter, etc. These facts being collected, collated, and placed before the 

 philosopher, he can tell in what condition the weather was, at any one 

 time, over a great extent of country ; and thus he can trace out the laws 

 which governed any noted atmospheric disturbance, such as a storm of 

 wind, or rain. To have such observations made is the plan of the Smith- 

 sonian Institute. They have secured the services of some two hundred 

 observers, in various parts of the country, whose duty it is to keep the 

 weather records, similar to the one published in the present number of 

 this journal. These are transmitted monthly, to the meteorologist of the 

 Institute, at Washington, who gives the result of a comparison of them, 

 all together, and then places them in safe keeping, for future reference. 

 In this way, several interesting facts have been already ascertained. 

 For instance, these records show that all, or nearly all, changes in the 

 weather, of any kind, occur first at the west, and work their way, gradu- 

 ally, toward the east; thus, in the summer of 1853, an unusually warm, 

 time occurred about the middle of June — beginning on the twelfth and 

 thirteenth, at the extreme west, viz., Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa, 

 but did not reach the extreme east until the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 of that month. Another wave of hot air started on the nineteenth of 

 the same month in Texas, and was about four days in reaching Xew York ; 

 and on the thirtieth another, occupying about one day and a half in 

 traveling from St. Louis to Washington. By citing other cases from the 

 same record, we might show that nearly all changes of an opposite nature, 

 r. e., from warm to cold, proceed in the same direction ; and in the case 

 of great storms, the velocity with which they travel toivard the ea^t, is 

 very great. So well is this known, that whenever a storm occurs on the 

 westernmost of the chain of great lakes, the telegraph apprises all ports 

 eastward, in order that their shipping may be duly prepared for the 

 blast that ere long comes rushing on, from west to east. 



We notice, too, by inspecting these records, that the changes from 

 warm to cold are, during the winter months, extremely sudden. For 



