1865] WRITINGS OF JOSEPH HENRY. 453 



gradually curving round before they reach our latitude, take 

 an easterly direction, as has been shown by Redfield and 

 others. 



The first practical application which was attempted of the 

 principle we have mentioned was made by this Institution 

 in 185G ; the information conveyed by telegraphic despatches 

 in regard to the weather was daily exhibited by means of 

 differently colored tokens, on a map of the United States, so 

 as to show at one view the meteorological condition of the 

 atmosphere over the whole country. At the same time pub- 

 lication of telegraphic despatches was made in the newspa- 

 pers. The system however was necessarily discontinued at 

 the beginning of the war, and has not yet been resumed. 

 Similar applications have since been made in other coun- 

 tries, particularly in England, under the late Amiral Fitz- 

 roy; in France, under Leverrier; and still later, in Italy. 

 In the last-mentioned country tabular statements are to be 

 published annually, comparing the predictions with the 

 weather actually experienced. 



The British Government has also recently introduced the 

 system of telegraphic meteorological predictions into India. 

 The cyclone of October, 1864, which did such damage to the 

 shipping in Calcutta and destroyed the lives of sixty thou- 

 sand persons, called special attention to the subject. The 

 Asiatic Society of Bengal estimated the cost of such a system 

 at 67,000 rupees (about $30,000), a sum which the govern- 

 ment hesitated to appropriate, though it decided to furnish 

 the necessary instruments and an allowance of fifty rupees 

 a month to the assistant at the telegraph station at San- 

 ger, on the seaboard to the southward of Calcutta, in the 

 direction from which the most severe storms approach that 

 port. 



It must be evident from what we have said in regard to 

 the movement of storms, that a system of telegraphic meteo- 

 rological predictions would be at once more reliable and of 

 more benefit to the eastern coast of the United States, than 

 those made in England and France, on the western coast of 

 Europe, could possibly be to those countries, since the dis- 



