THIRTY-THIRD CONGRESS, 1853-55. 533 



Here is Professor Espy's letter: 



IRVING HOTEL, WASHINGTON, September 8, 1853. 



SIR : In answer to your letter of the 6th instant, requesting me to "furnish 

 you a report of my labors, and their results, connected with the meteoro- 

 logical observations conducted by me, under the direction of the Navy De- 

 partment, during the past year," I have to report progress as follows: 



During the year, as in several former years, I have had access to all the 

 meteorological journals kept at the various military posts by order of the 

 Surgeon General, and to all the journals procured by the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution, which are very numerous,and embrace a very wide extent of 

 territory, which, united to the journals of my own correspondents, furnish 

 the means, such as the world never possessed before, of generalizing the 

 phenomena of storms, and educing laws which apply to their origin, the 

 direction and velocity of their motion, in the United States; the direction 

 and violence of the wind in different parts of the storm at the same time; 

 the state of the barometer in the storm and around its borders; the causes 

 which produce these phenomena; and the means of predicting, in all great 

 storms of dangerous violence, their approach in time to prepare for them. 

 How much of all this I have already done, and how much remains to be 

 done, and with what prospect of success, you will judge by examining my 

 .previous reports to the Department. 



The plan which I adopted in these reports, in collating the meteorological 

 journals, was to exhibit to the eye, on skeleton maps of the United States, 

 the various phenomena of the winds and rains and barometric fluctuations 

 by appropriate symbols, so that, by a glance, it might be seen where a storm 

 was raging, how far it extended, in what direction, and with what violence 

 the wind blew in its borders, and beyond ; how the barometer stood within 

 and beyond its borders; and how far, and in what direction, the center of 

 the storm had moved by the next day at the same hour. This plan I have 

 -not seen proper to change in the report now in progress for the Department. 



I have already finished collating the years 1849, 1850. and 1851, with the 

 exception of the third quarter of 1849 and the third quarter of 1851. These 

 quarters I shall finish by the end of the present year ; and, if you so direct, the 

 report for these three years can be handed in to Congress. But I respectfully 

 suggest that a report on this subject would be greatly increased in value by 

 even a small increase of time contained in it ; and I should be pleased if you 

 would allow the report to be withheld from Congress till its second session, 

 ;at which time the year 1851 would be embodied'in it. 



Whatever you direct me to do on this, shall be done to the best of my 

 ..ability. 



Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 



JAMES P. ESPY. 

 Hon. J. (?. DOBBIN. 



These calculations are of very great service to science. 

 They are the handmaid to the great business in which Lieu- 

 tenant Maury is engaged. It seems that Professor Espy has 

 iiccess to the journals kept at the various military stations 

 in the country, to all the journals received by the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, and besides that, has a very large cor- 

 respondence of his own from which he deduces his facts, 

 and reports to the Secretary of the Navy. 



Mr. STUART, by unanimous consent, withdrew his amend- 

 ment to the amendment. 



Mr. Haven's amendment was then agreed to. 



