342 THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 



gather and issue flood warnings of great value. In that year 

 there was another tremendous flood throughout the lower 

 Mississippi Valley, but for days before the river had risen to 

 the point of overflow, warning after warning was telegraphed 

 down to the threatened area telling of the heavy precipitation 

 throughout the regions to the north, of the roaring rise of 

 the Mississippi's tributary streams, and of the certain on- 

 coming of the flood. The government statistician estimates 

 that there was in the flooded district approximately $15,000,000 

 worth of live stock and other movable property, the greater 

 part of which was gotten to places of safety mainly because of 

 the information which had been gathered and disseminated by 

 these meteorologists. 



When the river had reached at New Orleans the highest 

 stage ever known, and people were saying the worst was 

 over and were beginning to relax their exertions for addi- 

 tional protection, the weather bureau, as the organization of 

 the meteorologists is called, informed the city that the water 

 would continue rising and within five days would reach a 

 height twelve inches above any previous record. The state- 

 ment seemed incredible and many were disposed to doubt the 

 trustworthiness of the report. However, the work of strength- 

 ening and raising the levees went on, and the warning was 

 justified upon the fifth day when the water reached the un- 

 precedented height predicted. 



Throughout the country where floods occur the whole river 

 area is now mapped out in sections, each of which is in charge 

 of a forecaster who daily, and, if occasion require, hourly re- 

 ceives by telegraph the reports of the rainfall, etc., over the 

 watershed tributary to his river district, the gauge readings 

 and other pertinent data also from the stations nearer the 



