548 



MYER, ALBERT J. 



vania. Each philanthropic novelty found in 

 her an untiring advocate. She espoused the 

 cause of temperance, and latterly the move- 

 ment for universal peace. She attained the 

 age of eighty-eight years, dying on November 

 llth, in Philadelphia. 



MYER, ALBERT J., an American meteorolo- 

 gist and Chief Signal-Officer of the United 

 States Army, born at Newburgh, New York, 

 September 20, 1828; died at Buffalo, New York, 

 August 24, 1880. Graduated from Hobart Col- 

 lege, Geneva, New York, in 1847, appointed As- 

 sistant Surgeon United States Army, with the 

 rank of first-lieutenant, September 18, 1854, 

 and assigned to duty in Texas. While serving 

 on the frontier he elaborated a system of day 

 and night signaling with flags and torches, by 

 which parties within telescopic range of each 

 other could converse as fully and accurately 

 as by the electric telegraph, although with 

 less rapidity. This was effected by framing 

 an alphabet from simple numerical combina- 

 tions, and representing these numerals by move- 

 ments to the right or left of a stationary ob- 

 ject or of the human figure. The apparatus 

 required was inexpensive, readily attainable, 

 and easily transported, while the whole work 

 came within the capacity of the average sol- 

 dier. The system, after careful experiment, 

 was adopted by the War Department, and Dr. 

 Myer, refusing a money compensation, was 

 made Signal-Officer of the Army, with the 

 rank of major, June 27, 1860, the position 

 being especially created for him by necessary 

 legislation. The first field work with the new 

 signal code was in New Mexico, where Major 

 Myer took part in an expedition against the 

 Navajo Indians, and its usefulness was fully 

 demonstrated. When the civil war broke out, 

 Major Myer was ordered to Washington, and 

 assigned to duty with the Army of the Poto- 

 mac. He secured the detail of a number of 

 officers and enlisted men, and organized a 

 camp of instruction, at which matters were 

 pushed so rapidly that he was enabled to fur- 

 nish each army corps as it took the field with a 

 competent force of skilled signalists. On March 

 3, 1863, he succeeded in getting this tempo- 

 rary detail of officers and men organized into 

 a distinct and permanent corps, of which he 

 was appointed the head, with the rank of colo- 

 nel. On November 10, 1863, owing to a want 

 of harmony between himself and the Secre- 

 tary of War, he was relieved from charge ot 

 the corps and assigned to duty in a Western 

 department, where he remained until July, 

 1864, when, his appointment as Chief Signal- 

 Officer failing of confirmation by the Senate, 

 he retired to his home in Buffalo and devoted 

 himself to the preparation of the "Manual of 

 Signals," until reappointed and confirmed as 

 Chief Signal-Officer, July 28, 1868. During 

 his administration in the field he introduced 

 for the first time in the history of military 

 warfare the use of movable or field tele- 

 graphs on the actual field of battle. For his 



services in organizing, instructing, and com- 

 manding the Signal Corps during the war, he 

 was brevetted brigadier-general, to date from 

 March 13, 1865. From the date of his restora- 

 tion to active service until 1870, General Myer 

 devoted himself to perfecting the details of the 

 Signal Service. On February 9, 1870, Con- 

 gress passed a joint resolution authorizing the 

 Secretary of War to provide for taking meteor- 

 ological observations at the military stations 

 in the interior of the continent and at other 

 points in the States and Territories of the Unit- 

 ed States, and for giving notice on the North- 

 ern lakes and seaboard by telegraph and signals 

 of the approach and force of storms, and the 

 execution of this duty was confided by the Sec- 

 retary to General Myer as Chief of the Signal 

 Service and as having been previously interest- 

 ed in the subject of storm telegraphy. The pre- 

 paratory work of organization was prosecuted 

 with energy. Soldiers were detailed and in- 

 structed as observers, instruments and stations 

 selected, arrangements made with the tele- 

 graph companies for transmitting the observa- 

 tion, and on November 1, 1870, at 7.35 A. M., 

 the first systematized simultaneous meteorologi- 

 cal observations ever taken in the United States 

 were read from the instruments by the observ- 

 er-sergeants of the Signal Service, at twenty- 

 four stations and placed upon the telegraphic 

 wires for transmission. On the first day of 

 report, weather bulletins were posted at each 

 one of the twenty-four selected stations, and 

 the practical working of this division of the ser- 

 vice was assured. The field was virtually a new 

 one. A few venturesome spirits from the first 

 days of the electric telegraph had dreamed of 

 the possibility of such a work, and some had 

 even made unsuccessful attempts to realize 

 their dream, but they failed to grasp the great 

 principles on which General Myer built the 

 success of the Weather Bureau the simulta- 

 neity of the observations and the military 

 discipline by which their regularity was as- 

 sured. The work of the Weather Bureau soon 

 became popular and was rapidly extended, 

 having increased at the date of General My- 

 er's death to over three hundred stations, 

 with a force of five hundred men, each one 

 of whom was a practical meteorologist. In 

 1873 General Myer represented the United 

 States at the International Congress of Meteor- 

 ologists convened in Vienna, and secured the 

 concurrence of the Congress in the proposition 

 that at least one uniform observation of such 

 character as to be suitable for the preparation 

 of synoptic charts should be taken and record- 

 ed daily and simultaneously at as many sta- 

 tions as practicable throughout the world, for 

 the purpose of mutual exchange. This action 

 extended the system of simultaneous observa- 

 tion over the whole northern hemisphere, and 

 was the beginning of a new era in interna- 

 tional meteorology. On July 1, 1875, General 

 Myer began the publication of a daily " Inter- 

 national Bulletin," comprising the reports from 



