236 MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 



those who would deny him any part in the establishment 

 of the present Weather Bureau. On the contrary, there 

 are others who would go to the opposite extreme and 

 give him all the credit for bringing it about. For ex- 

 ample, Mr. E. P. Dorr, who was at one time an observer 

 for the Smithsonian and afterwards President of the 

 Board of Lake Underwriters, wrote to Mr. Thompson B. 

 Maury, at that time (1873) in the Signal Office, in 

 Washington that Maury's "intelligent, original mind 

 invented and suggested the present system of meteoro- 

 logical observations; and the writer wishes this in some 

 way to be put upon record, to do justice to the dead 

 Maury, a man whose name and memory will live in all 

 civilized countries on the globe, throughout all time, as 

 an original, great mind. ... I could not rest unless I 

 told some one that the late M. F. Maury was the origi- 

 nator in design and detail, in all its parts, of the present 

 system of meteorological observations now so generally 

 taken all over the country". 



The question of due credit is a perplexing one; but 

 certainly no one could cavil at the modest claim made 

 by Maury's son Matthew in the following letter: *Tn 

 1869, Abb6 took the question up and began issuing local 

 forecasts from Cincinnati Observatory and out of his 

 success here and efforts in Washington grew the Weather 

 Bureau in November, 1870, with General Myer at its 

 head, to whom belongs the credit of working up all the 

 details and putting the thing on such a practical footing. 

 Till now the Washington work is the admiration of all 

 the world as its daily charts and reports embrace not 

 only the United States but the whole of the northern 

 hemisphere, Australia, and the Cape of Good Hope. 

 Now I think that any calm mind can only say for Father 



