DISCOURSE OF W. B. TAYLOR. 287 



warning the more northern and eastern observers to be on the 

 watch for the first appearance of an advancing storm." * 



An appropriation for the purpose having been made by the 

 Regents, a large number of observers scattered over the United 

 States and the Territories became voluntary correspondents of the 

 Institution. Advantage was taken of the stations already estab- 

 lished under the direction of the War, and of the Navy Depart- 

 ments, as well as of those provided for by a few of the States. 

 The annual reports of the Secretary chronicled the extension and 

 success of the system adopted ; and in a few years between five and 

 six hundred regular observers were engaged in its meteorological 

 service. The favorite project of employing the telegraph for 

 obtaining simultaneous results over a large area was at once organ- 

 ized; and in 1849, a system of telegraphic despatches was estab- 

 lished, by which (a few years later) the information received in 

 Washington at the Smithsonian Institution was daily plotted upon 

 a large map of the United States by means of adjustable symbols. 

 Espy's generalization that the principal storms and other atmos- 

 pheric changes have an eastward movement,t was fully established 

 by this rapidly gathered experience of the Institution ; so that " it 

 was often enabled to predict (sometimes a day or two in advance) 

 the approach of any of the larger disturbances of the atmosphere." J 



Eminently efficient as the enterprise approved itself, increasing 

 experience served to demonstrate the expanding requirements of the 



* Smithsonian Report for 1847, pp. 146, 147 (of Sen. ed.) pp. 138, 139 (of H. Rep. ed.) 

 Professor Loom! s (to whom among others "distinguished for their attainments in 

 meteorology " letters inviting suggestions, had been addressed,) recommended that 

 there should be at least one observing station within every hundred square miles 

 of the United States; and he sagaciously pointed out that "When the magnetic 

 telegraph [then an infant three years old] is extended from New York to New 

 Orleans and St. Louis, it may be made subservient to the protection of our com- 

 merce." This interesting letter was published in full as "Appendix No. 2," to the 

 Report. In 1848, a paper was read before the British Association by Mr. John Ball, 

 "On rendering the Electric Telegraph subservient to Meteorological Research: in 

 which the author suggested that simultaneous observations so collected, might 

 reveal the direction and probable time of arrival of storms. (Report Brit. Assoc. 

 Swansea, Aug. 1848. Abstracts, pp. 12, 13.) 



f FRANKLIN is said to have been the first who stated the general law, that the 

 storms of our Southern States move off to the northeastward over the Middle and 

 Eastern States. 



^Smithsonian Report for 1864, p. 44. An interesting and instructive resume of 

 results accomplished within fifteen years was given in this Report, pp. 42-45 : and 

 continued in the succeeding Report for 1866, pp. 50-59. 



