30 rkllSlDEXTIAI, ADDRESS SRCTIOX A. 



weather charts uitli the forecasts ])rinte(l are ready for distribu- 

 tion. Tlie number of post offices or addresses receiving in 1907 

 a daily report by mail direct from the central office was 78,109. 

 and the grand total of addresses to which daily forecasts were 

 sent through the offices which the Washington Hurcau controls 

 was 2.141,151, and that inde])endently of the people who were 

 reached by the ne\vspa])ers. which most of them publish the daily 

 forecasts of the Weather Bureau. Tliousands of weather tele- 

 i^ranis arc sent daily at Government expense, for the telegraph 

 lines in the States belong to private companies. Railway, com- 

 panies have special code signals affixed to the guards' vans. 

 '^j)ecial alphabet of locomotive whistles, that people in the 

 coinitry districts may see or hear the weather report as the train 

 rushes by ; thousands of telephone companies receive a daily 

 weather telegram, the contents of which they telephone at stated 

 lioiu-s to all their subscribers, and I don't know how many other 

 means arc used, or have been tried, to disseminate these fore- 

 casts daily througli tlie most inaccessible j)arts of the Union. Tf 

 tlie hard-headed American politician, if railway, telegraph, and 

 leleplione companies, if farmers in the prairies of the Far West 

 take this dailv interest in the work of the U.S. \\'cather 

 lUneau merely to encourage a hobljy of a dozen scientists in 

 Washington, we must admit that the average American is a 

 strange being, stranger even than the conventional American of 

 the European novelist. 



Meanwhile, whatever others may think or do or not do, the 

 American statesman is fully aware of the great benefits his 

 country derives from the Weather Bureau. He sees that, owing 

 to the intelligent su])port of its government, the Bureau is al)le 

 today, to mention one only of its numerous works of public 

 utility, to ])redict the river floods days and even weeks in advance, 

 give the rise of the water in various parts o^the river course to- 

 tlie nearest foot ; that the value of property thus saved every 

 vear often by one single i)rediction represents several times over 

 the whole appropriation for the meteorological service. The 

 farmer in the dry lands of the West knows, or may know if he 

 cares to inquire, that it is owing a great deal to the practical" 

 interest which his Government takes in the work of the American 

 scientist that he can even to-day land his maize at any South 

 African port as cheap, and often cheaper, than the farmer in a 

 great part of the South African hinterland can land his at his: 

 nearest railwav station. 



