Blasius.] ^^a [Jan. 18, 



cent, and they have reached as high as ninety-five per cent. The public 

 was elated to have the best Signal Service in the world, and did not care to 

 test the matter. Now General Greely cannot well exceed one hundred 

 per cent, and he cannot well go back to a more justified number, and the 

 public then thinks that the Signal Service is degenerating. Thus General 

 Greely has to bear the sins committed by his predecessors. General Greely 

 is as well calculated for his important position as any of his predecessors, 

 if not better. But the Signal Service will not become better nor grow 

 worse than it always has been, unless General Greely commences from 

 anew and does what General Meyer ought to have done in the beginning. 

 To establish correct laws ought to be his first and principal aim. The 

 fact that, at the end of nearly a quarter of a century's hard work, the 

 public begins to think that the Signal Service is not as effective any more 

 as in its earlier days when it could not be anything, is sufiicient to prove 

 that the laws hitherto followed are wrong. 



In view of the foregoing, I beg leave to make the following suggestions 

 for the improvement of the Signal Service Bureau : — 



Find the true laws. This country offers all advantages. Let the pre- 

 dicting, in the meantime, go on in the usual way to satisfy the public. It 

 cannot become worse than it has been hitherto, by taking away half a 

 dozen or a dozen of the most intelligent men, and making them an investi- 

 gating corps. Have them taught, above all, to see correctly in order to be 

 able to read nature as well as antiquated books and meteorological instru- 

 ments — the latter any school-boy can do. Teach these men to compare 

 what they have seen and with common sense work it into laws, as 

 Franklin did. The less these men know of antiquated traditional theories 

 taught by professors who never digested them themselves, the better they 

 are calculated for their work. 



Let General Greely shake off such authorities that hide their ignorance 

 in high-sounding hollow phrases, and who compliment each other by 

 copying each other's undigested works, and start anew with such an in- 

 vestigating corps prepared in the above-mentioned way, and the Signal 

 Service will soon be in the condition to show real progress. In this coun- 

 try the meteorological laws are exhibited so plainly that anybody who has 

 learned to see nature correctly, without being biased in his mind, cannot 

 fail to learn them. 



