THE INTERNATIONAL WEATHER-SERVICE. 299 



vations and amasses its corresponding charts. Every cooi^erator in the 

 work, it should be added, is encouraged and stimulated by the fact 

 that a daily copy of both the " International Bulletin " and " Chart " 

 is furnished by the United States, without cost, to each observer, on 

 land or at sea, of whatever nation, who, at the request or with the sanc- 

 tion of the Chief Signal-Officer, cooperates in the enterprise. 



We come now to the question of the practical application and util- 

 ity of the data and charts jDublished in connection with the interna- 

 tional weather-service. And here the embarrassment arises from the 

 multiplicity of matters, affecting almost every interest and industry of 

 mankind, upon which this service will bear. There is not a profession, 

 or trade, or handicraft in society which is not at every turn more or 

 less influenced by the weather, and compelled to act upon some kind 

 of weather-forecasts. No sooner had the Weather Bureau commenced 

 its daily publication of "Probabilities " or "Indications," in 1870, than 

 " whole troops of practical applications " of the data sprang into exist- 

 ence. It will be so with the international bulletin and charts of simul- 

 taneous meteorology. 



One of the first practical applications of the simultaneous obseiwa- 

 tions over the northern hemisphere will be realized in the elucidation 

 and correction of "^Ae laio of storms,'''' and of the rules for the extri- 

 cation of ships from the storm-vortex. Great have been the intellect 

 and learning employed in the settlement of this question, so important 

 to commerce and navigation. The time-honored researches of Red- 

 field, Reid, Espy, Piddington, Thom, and others of the past, supple- 

 mented and harmonized in a measure by those of living laborers in 

 the storm-field, have indeed established the existence of a " law of 

 storms " upon an unassailable foundation. But they have not defined 

 some of its cardinal conditions. The definition of stomis as " revolving 

 gales," in which the winds blow in concentric circles around a calm 

 center, has been rudely damaged by the facts every day brought to 

 light. And the contrary theory, that the storm-winds blow in radial 

 lines toward the vortex, has not fared much better. The intermediate 

 hypothesis, that the winds blow in regular spirals around the center, 

 while it apparently reconciles some of the otherwise conflicting facts, 

 and has given a temjjorary quietus to the storai controversy, strictly 

 speaking, is not less objectionable than either of the theories it affects 

 to correct : for it apparently obliterates, or seemingly ignores, the two 

 large and distinct classes of indisputable wind-phenomena upon which 

 the rival deductions of Redfield and Espy were respectively based. 

 Time has fully demonstrated the insufiiciency of both the " circular " 

 and the " centripetal " theory to account satisfactorily for all the 

 salient and phenomenal featui-es of a cyclone, but it has attested the 

 immense value of them both as scientific approximations to the truth. 

 But, it must also be said, the theory of " spiral " currents arranged 

 symmetrically around the storm-center does not furnish a complete so- 



