510 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



conducted by me, under the direction of tlie Navy Department during the past year," 

 I have to report progress as follows: 



During the year, as in several former years, I have had access to all the meteoro- 

 logical journals kept at the various military posts by order of the Surgeon-General, 

 and to all the journals procured by the Smithsonian Institution, which are very 

 numerous, and embrace a very wdde extent of territory, which, united to the journals 

 of my own correspondents, furnish the means, such as the world never possessed 

 before, of generalizing the phenomena of storms, and educing laws which apply to 

 their origin, the direction and velocity of their motion, in the United States; the 

 ./iirection and violence of the wind in different parts of the storm at the same time; 

 the state of the barometer in the storm and around its borders; the causes which pro- 

 duce these phenomena, and the means of predicting, in all great storms of dangerous 

 violence, their approach in time to prepare for them. How much of all this I have 

 already done, and how much remains to be done, and with what prospect of success, 

 you will judge by examining ray previous reports to the Department. 



The plan which I adopted in these reports, in collating the meteorological journals, 

 was to exhibit to the eye, on skeleton maps of the United States, the various phe- 

 nomena of the winds and rains and barometric fluctuations by appropriate syml^ols, 

 so that, by a glance, it might be seen where a storm was raging, how far it extended, 

 in what direction, and with what violence the wind blew in its borders, and beyond; 

 how the barometer stood within and beyond its borders, and how far, and in what 

 direction, the center of the storm had moved by the next day at the same hour. This 

 plan I have not seen proper to change in the report now in progress for the Depart- 

 ment. 



I have already finished collating the years 1849, 1850, and 1851, with the exception 

 of the third quarter of 1849 and the third quarter of 1851. These quarters I shall 

 finish by the end of the present year; and, if you so direct, the report for these three 

 years can be handed in to Congress. But I respectfully suggest that a report on this 

 subject would be greatly increased in value by even a small increase of time contained 

 in it; and I should be pleased if you would allow the report to be withheld from 

 Congress till its second session, at which time the year 1851 would be embodied in it. 



Whatever you direct me to do on this shall be done to the best of my ability. 



Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 



James P. Espy. 

 Hon. J. C. Dobbin. 



These calculations are of very great service to science. The}^ are 

 the handmaid to the great business in which Lieutenant Maur}^ is 

 engaged. It seems that Professor Espy has access to the journals kept 

 at the various military stations in the country, to all the journals 

 received by the Smithsonian Institution, and besides that, has a very 

 large correspondence of his own from which he deduces his facts, and 

 reports to the Secretary of the Nav.y. 



Mr. Stuart, by unanimous consent, withdrew his amendment to the 

 amendment. 



]Mr. S. G. Haven's amendment was then agreed to. 



August 5, 1854. 



Act for naval service for 1855. 



To enable the Secretary of the Navy to pay the salary of Professor 

 James P. Espy, for the current fiscal year, ending June 30, 1855, $2, 0(H): 

 the payment to be made in the same manner and under the like control 

 as former appropriations for meteorological observations. 



(Stat., X, 584.) 



