r876.J -^^1 [Blasius. 



to do is to get some one's description of an Asiatic elephant, and draw your 

 own conclusions. Mr. F. Gaster, of the London Meteorological Office says 

 upon tliis point, that at Valentia, where observations are not made between 

 the hours of 8 A. M. and 2 P. M. "Storms liave been overlooked, which 

 would doubtless have been noticed at the Central Office, where the weather 

 is observed continuously." Is it not at the least very probable that the 

 Signal Service, making but tri-daily observations, has overlooked storms 

 in tlie same way ? 



In my book I urge that observations of the clouds in connection with serial 

 currents is of the greatest importance, which the Atlantic Monthly writer at- 

 tempts to meet by saying that the Signal Service has made tri-daily maps 

 of the clouds for four years. This may be true, but it has never made ob- 

 servations of the intimate connection of the clouds with serial currents, nor 

 understood this significances. Early in 1874 I explained my views to Prof- 

 Henry of the Smithsonian Institute, in a personal interview, and he then 

 said, "This is all new to me." He took copious notes. The Signal Ser- 

 vice report for 1873, published after this, contains a few old plates of 

 the cloudforms given by Howard, Poey, and others, but with no refer- 

 ence to them in the text. Tliat of 1874 contains cloud maps for one day, 

 with no reference in the text, and contains no attempt to give the particu- 

 lar forms any distinctive character. The eminent meteorologist. Prof. H. 

 Mohn, Director of the Royal Meteorological Institute at Christiania, Nor- 

 way, in a letter to me says : "That you introduce the cloudforms into 

 practical meteorology is certainly very good." It is of little use to make 

 maps of the clouds unless we understand something of their significance. 



The reviewer states that I claim for myself in conjunction with ex- 

 President Hill, of Harvard, "the credit of originating the present Signal 

 Service storm-warnings," but that we "were anticipated by Redfield, 

 Henry, and others." A claim of this kind is hardly worth advancing or 

 discussing, bvit I wish to correct misunderstandings. All I do claim is that 

 in 1851, before any one else, I believe, I advocated and labored for a corps 

 of meteorological observers connected by telegraph with a central office, so 

 that the central observer might see the whole storm continuously in all its 

 extent from beginning to end. 



I would earnestly urge a popular interest in meteorology, since no other 

 science is so open to those occupied in otlier pursuits, and scarcely another 

 of so much practical importance. We all know men of no scientific ac- 

 quirements, yet who are so well versed in signs of the weather that their 

 predictions are more to be relied on for a particular locality than the very 

 general "Probabilities" of the Signal Service. Such weather-wisdom is 

 founded upon accurate observations of nature, and the explanation of 

 weather signs is often very simple. For instance, it is an old Indian ob- 

 servation that Summer storms follow the course of rivers. The explanation 

 of which is tliat Summer storms are mostly produced by the advance of 

 colder air, which being heavier, sinks into and follows the valleys, at the 

 bottom of which there is usually a water-course. Again, a halo round 



PKOC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XVI. 97. Z 



