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SIGNAL SEE VICE. 



Signal Officer of the United States Army, look- 

 ing toward a world-wide scheme of weather- 

 research. General Myer's proposition was to 

 this effect: "That it is desirable, with a view 

 to their exchange, that at least one uniform ob- 

 servation, of such character as to be suited for 

 the preparation of synoptic charts, he taken 

 and recorded daily at as many stations as prac- 

 ticable throughout the world." The author of 

 this proposition had in his report to the United 

 States Congress in 1872 expressed a desire for 

 such a cosmopolitan work " a grand chain of 

 interchanged international reports, destined 

 with a higher civilization to bind together the 

 signal services of the world " ; and the Vienna 

 conference now responded to his overture with 

 alacrity. As well might the United States or 

 Great Britain seek to unravel the mysteries of 

 the Gulf Stream by surveying only that por- 

 tion of the great ocean-current which impinges 

 on its own shores, leaving unobserved its 

 sources in the equatorial Atlantic and its 

 northeastward deflection from Newfoundland, 

 as to expect to master the mysteries of the at- 

 mospheric ocean by studying only the winds 

 and storms which sweep over its own national 

 bounds. The atmosphere is a unit, and to be 

 understood must be studied as a unit. The 

 storms which pass over us all have their " po- 

 lar" and "equatorial" air-currents; and, to 

 comprehend the forces which conspire to make 

 a single cyclone, we must extend our investi- 

 gations far beyond our own territorial limits. 



The adoption of General Myer's proposition 

 by the Vienna Congress, and the courteous co- 

 operation on the part of all the leading gov- 

 ernments of Europe, soon enabled him to col- 

 lect materials for laying the foundation of the 

 international research. Rapidly expanding in 

 1874, the exchange of simultaneous reports be- 

 came numerous enough to admit of making 

 a daily "International Weather Bulletin and 

 Chart'" ; and on July 1, 1875, the Signal Office 

 at Washington commenced the da'ly publica- 

 tion of the " International Bulletin," presenting 

 the tabulated results of simultaneous weather- 

 observations from all the cooperating nations 

 and from the oceans. These reports are in- 

 tended to cover the combined territorial ex- 

 tent of Algiers, Australasia. Austria, Belgi- 

 um, Central America, China, Denmark, France, 

 Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Greenland, 

 India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Moroc- 

 co, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Rus- 

 sia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunis. Tur- 

 key, British North America, the United States, 

 the Azores, Malta, Mauritius, the Sandwich 

 Islands, South Africa, South America, and the 

 West Indies, so far as they have been placed 

 under meteorological surveillance; and also 

 the great ocean - highways, from which the 

 ships of all flags take observations while en 

 route from port to port. 



As early as July 1, 1878, in connection with 

 the daily " International Bulletin " issued by 

 the Washington Signal Office, General Myer 



began the daily publication of a graphic synop- 

 tic "International Weather-Map." This "chart 

 covers the whole international network of ob- 

 servations, and is the supplement and key to the 

 daily bulletin, both being based on the same 

 data, and both of the same date. The " Interna- 

 tional Weather-Map of Simultaneous Observa- 

 tions" (see map opposite) exhibits the aerial 

 phenomena as they actually existed all around 

 the earth at a fixed moment of time ; it is, so 

 to speak, a photograph of the atmospheric ma- 

 chinery, picturing its varied movements and 

 delineating its component parts and elements, 

 so as to represent it as a whole the desidera- 

 tum of science in all ages. In carrying out 

 this international cooperative enterprise, the 

 Signal Office, by an order of the Secretary of 

 the Navy, receives the daily simultaneous re- 

 ports from all vessels of the United States 

 Navy, and has the cooperation of the Pacific 

 Mail Steamship Company's vessels, as also that 

 of the White Star Line, the Occidental and 

 Oriental Steamship Company, the North Ger- 

 man Lloyd, the American Steamship Company, 

 the Red Star Line, the Allan Line of steamers, 

 and others, whose contributions swell the daily 

 international reports to over five hundred in 

 number. The daily bulletins and charts pre- 

 pared from the collective data are mailed to 

 every cooperating seaman and civilian observer 

 without charge, as an acknowledgment of his 

 service to science, and constitute in themselves 

 an invaluable meteorological library. In the 

 cases of all maritime observers, the Signal 

 Office bears all expenses for forms, postage, 

 etc. ; and when necessary it furnishes the ship- 

 master with the requisite instruments. The 

 number of observations now made by separate 

 vessels at sea is 122, and all ocean-going ves- 

 sels are requested to embark in this system of 

 research. Asa striking illustration of the op- 

 portunities which a vessel at sea has for aiding 

 in this meteorological work, it may be men- 

 tioned that the steamship Faraday, when laying 

 the last Atlantic cable, encountered a severe 

 cyclone in mid-ocean, which, without heaving 

 to, she reported by her telegraphic wire to 

 Europe, noting the successive changes of wind 

 as the different quadrants of the storm passed 

 over her; thus indicating to those on land the 

 direction and progressive velocity of the gale, 

 so that they could calculate the time and lo- 

 cality at which it would strike upon the Euro- 

 pean coasts. If, as General Myer holds, it is 

 practicable to establish floating stations in mid- 

 Atlantic, connected by cable with the conti- 

 nent, the reports from such posts would be of 

 incalculable value to British and continental 

 meteorologists in making out their daily weath- 

 er-forecasts and ordering storm-warnings for 

 their seaports. 



The United States is the geographical thea- 

 tre upon which cyclopean aerial forces of arc- 

 tic, tropic, and Pacific origin play their mighty 

 parts in the ceaseless conflict, the vicissitudes 

 of which give us the alternations and extremes 



