Jan. 18, 18S9.] 285 [Blasius. 



yud'-da-kdr'-sha, ground cherries. yush' -da-ment, exactly so. 

 ?/i6'-K, July. 2/Ms/i'-(ZiS, justice of the peace. 



ynng, young. yusht, only, but. 



yung'-frii, virgin. yiit, Jew. 



yushd, only, just. 



Has the Signal Service Degenerated ? By William Blasius. 

 (Read before the American Philosophical Society, January IS, 1S89.) 



There is of late a growing impression in the public mind that the Signal 

 Service Bureau is degenerating, and is less efiective than during its earlier 

 days. The Philadelphia Public Ledger gives these impressions a definite 

 form when it refers to the forecasts of that great storm of November 37, 

 1888, which read: "Fair, except light showers on the coast; northerly 

 wind, becoming variable ; stationary temperature," and compares it with 

 the violent storm on that day. It then continues: "It is because the 

 Ledger desires to have what may be made a useful service restored to its 

 former 'probability,' that it thus calls attention to failures of somebody at 

 the "Washington office to do as good work there as the service is capable 

 of doing, or has heretofore been done." 



If such a condition existed, if the Signal Service were no more effective 

 than it used to be in its earlier days, it would be most deplorable ; be- 

 cause the little interest the public seemed to take in this most interesting 

 and useful science might die away, and the hope we have for its develop- 

 ment be buried with it. Such a result would be still more unfortunate 

 from the fact that this country, by its geographical position and its topo- 

 graphical structure, is better adapted for a successful study of meteor- 

 ology than any other country on our globe. 



The Signal Service has, however, not degenerated, but it has not im- 

 proved much either, and if it does not change its plan of operation hitherto 

 pursued, I dare say it will be no more effective in the future. The above 

 prognostication, it is true, does not give in advance an idea of a storm 

 that will rage, "with hurricane fury over an extent of seven hundred 

 miles on our coast, from New Jersey to Nova Scotia," but it speaks, at 

 least, of "light showers on the coast." If we compare it, however, with 

 prognostications for similar storms of earlier days— for instance, the storm 

 of August 23, 24 and 25, in the year 1873, extending from New Jersey to 

 Nova Scotia, in which 1032 vessels and about 500 lives were lost, and 

 which was predicted by "fine weather"— the above prediction of "light 

 showers on the coast" must be considered an improvement. At that time 



