PROGRESS IJY TORNADO-PREDICTION. 307 



ferent stages of social progress. The alphabet, from a rude and vague 

 beginning in Egypt, passed thence through Phoenicia to Greece, where 

 it was perfected, and whence, in a few centuries, it was diffused to 

 India on the one side and to Scandinavia and Britain on the other. In 

 like manner coined money, vaguely beginning, as some suppose, with 

 the scaraboei of Egypt, was brought to perfection in Greece, and thence 

 spread thi-ough many civilized nations of Asia and among the semi- 

 barbarous communities of Western Europe. 



Both the art of writing and the use of money seem to have had an 

 indigenous origin in China. The Chinese written character has spread 

 through a large part of Eastern Asia. The Chinese currency, in its 

 ancient form of shell-money, appears to have had a stiU wider diffu- 

 sion. It has spread, apparently, through the islands of the North 

 Pacific, and, either thence or directly from China or Japan, has been 

 carried across the ocean to California, and so found its way eastward 

 to the Ohio Valley and the Atlantic coast. 



The fact, if it be a fact, that the Indians of the west coast of 

 America received their monetary system from Eastern Asia or from 

 the Pacific Islaiids, could not in itself be regarded as affording evi- 

 dence that America was first peopled from that direction, just as the 

 fact that the coinage of Bactria was derived from Greece would not 

 indicate that the Bactrian population was of Grecian origin. All that 

 we could infer would be some early intercourse, such as recent experi- 

 ence warrants us in supposing. A Chinese junk, or a large Microne- 

 sian prao, drifting to the Californian coast some three or four thou- 

 sand years ago, would sufficiently explain the introduction of an art 

 so easily learned as that of making and using perforated shell-disks 

 for money. 



PEOGRESS IN TORNADO-PREDICTION. 



By WILLIAM A. EDDY. 



DURING the first part of 1884 the United States Signal Service 

 began to pay special attention to the question of tornado-pre- 

 diction. The development of the science was rapid under the active 

 supervision of Lieutenant John P. Finley, having charge of that de- 

 partment of the service. It was found that the public interest in the 

 question was wide-spread, and that, with the aid of voluntary reporters 

 of tornado-phenomena, the possibility of saving life and property had 

 begun to crystallize into a practical scheme. The power to verify 

 predictions could only be obtained from two sources — from the press, 

 and from tornado-reporters, who would voluntarily report the phenom- 

 ena with some approach to scientific accuracy. The distinctions be- 

 tween a cyclone, five hundred or a thousand miles across the storm- 



