COMMITTEES ON BEHALF OF THE GOVERNMENT 301 



Messrs. Morgan, Herbert and Wait, reported on the Weather 

 Service as follows: ^" 



" As the result of their investigation of the Signal Service Bureau, the under- 

 signed respectfully submit to Congress the following bill, and recommend its 

 passage : 



" ' A bill to establish a Weather Bureau in the War Department, and for other 

 purposes. 



"'Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 

 States of America in Congress assembled. That on the first day of July, eighteen 

 hundred and eighty-six, the Signal Service Bureau shall be abolished, and a Bureau 

 to be styled the Weather Bureau shall be established, to which shall be transferred 

 the records and property of every kind now in charge of the Signal Service, except 

 arms and other military equipments and stores, all of which shall be turned over to 

 the proper officers of the Army. 



" ' Sec. 2. That the Weather Bureau shall be organized as a civil establish- 

 ment to promote meteorological investigations, and shall be under the direction 

 of the Secretary of War.' 



" John T. Morgan, 

 " Hilary A. Herbert, 

 " John T. Wait." 



Regarding the Coast and Geodetic Survey, Messrs. Herbert 

 and Morgan made the follow^ing minority report: 



" The undersigned favor the transfer of the Coast Survey proper to the Hydro- 

 graphic Office of the Navy Department. We mean to include not only the 

 hydrography, that is, soundings, etc., now done by naval officers under the 

 direction of the civilian head of the Coast Survey, but all topography upon 

 nautical charts, including such triangulation as is incident thereto. We believe 

 the Navy would execute this work more economically and speedily, and therefore 

 more effectively, than it is now being done." ^** 



" So far as a further survey of our coast is concerned, there seems to be a 

 propriety in transferring that work to the Navy Department. The other duties 

 now in charge of this establishment, if they cannot be profitably attached to some 

 existing Department or other Bureau, should be prosecuted under a law exactly 

 defining their scope and purpose, and with a careful discrimination between the 

 scientific inquiries which may properly be assumed by the Government and those 

 which should be undertaken by State authority or by individual enterprise." "° 



"' Op. eit., pp. 63-64. 

 "' Op. cit., p. 66. 

 '"Report, p. 80. 



91 



