DEVELOPMENT OF METEOROLOGY—ABBE. 309 
self in studying ideal types must sooner or later be replaced by 
researches that adhere more closely to the actual phenomena of 
nature. 
CONCLUSION. 
The resolution of problems bearing on the mechanics of the earth’s 
atmosphere is stimulating the efforts of the world’s best men, and 
illustrates the stage to which meteorology has attained in its progress 
toward being an exact science. Some portions of meteorology are 
zlready as exact as our knowledge of chemistry, optics, physics, or 
astronomy can make them; other parts are still in an unsatisfactory 
condition, which, of course, is also true of every branch of knowledge. 
We must congratulate our colleague, Professor Bigelow, on the con- 
tributions that he has made along lines of research that will help the 
next generation of students to a more thorough knowledge of laws 
that will eventually become the basis of satisfactory long-range fore- 
easts. It will always redound to the credit of the Weather Bureau to 
have encouraged and published such work as his in this difficult field. 
Equally creditable to America is the conception and establishment 
by the Chief of the Weather Bureau of a special research observatory 
at Mount Weather, where for the first time in the history of meteor- 
ology the researcher has been separated from the observer, and a spe- 
cial institution provided for him. This seems like the realization of 
an idea contained in a paragraph in my address at Indianapolis in 
1890: “ Why found new colleges and universities to teach what is 
already taught elsewhere? L'xploration is the order of the day. Give 
us first the means to increase knowledge, to explore nature and to 
bring out new truths. Let us perfect knowledge before we diffuse 
it among mankind, so that what we teach may with every coming 
year be nearer and nearer the eternal truth of God’s creation.” 
This exhortation is as applicable to-day as then. Meteorology is 
not yet properly recognized in our colleges, nor as a postgraduate 
course in our universities. The science has progressed, but the uni- 
versities have not kept up with it. Laboratories have been provided 
for chemistry, physics, psychology, wonderful observatories for as- 
tronomy and elaborate establishments for mechanical engineering, but 
a laboratory for the experimental study of the motions of the atmos- 
phere has not yet been provided, although the men who could con- 
duct it are ready and anxious to begin the great work that they see 
before them. 
