THE WEATHER BUREAU 401 



these storms which have visited our coast in recent years has 

 been predicted by the bureau, and ample warnin«i;s have been 

 issued. It has been estimated by maritime property owners 

 that the absence of warninp;s in the face of one of these storms 

 would result in not less than $3,000,000 worth of wreckage. 

 T\vice has the weather bureau taken a census of the amount 

 of property held in port as the result of hurricane signals. In 

 the first instance, the value was held to be $34,000,000. In 

 the second instance the estimate was $38,000,000. Ample 

 warning was given of the approach of the great hurricane of 

 August, 1899. Many lives were lost and much property was 

 destroj-ed, particularly at Ponce, but the result would not 

 have been nearly as disastrous had not the alcalde at Ponce 

 \\'ithheld the warning until it was too late to be of use. In 

 January, 1898, a severe cold wave swept across the country 

 from the Rocky mountains to the Atlantic. Professor Moore, 

 the chief of the bureau, secured estimates from shippers in 

 one hundred large cities which indicated that $3,400,000 

 worth of merchandise was saved through these signals. The 

 Cahfornia raisin growers estimate that the bureau has saved 

 them many millions of dollars. It is almost impossible to 

 estimate how much property was saved during the great 

 Mississippi river flood of the spring of 1897. When the water 

 had risen at New Orleans to the highest point ever known, 

 advices w^re sent to the city that in five days it would rise 

 still one foot higher. The prediction proved true, but in the 

 meantime the levees had been raised and strengthened. There 

 was at least $15,000,000 worth of stock and property in the 

 flooded district, and the greater part of this was moved in 

 time to places of safety. 



Vol. 7-26 



