184 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



unusually bad weather. Storm after storm came up, and 

 much damage was done to crops and other property. After 

 a time fearful glances be'gan to be cast toward the weather 

 office, and soon a meeting was held and resolutions were 

 adopted asking the man to pack up and leave the town, as 

 it was believed that the bad weather was caused by his 

 instruments. A committee of the leading citizens of the 

 town was appointed to interview the observer, and the 

 consequence was that his life was in danger, the feeling 

 against him and particularly against his little instruments 

 was so strong. 



We arc asked many times to define a storm. I cannot 

 answer that better than to quote Gen. A. TV r . Greely, the 

 chief signal officer of the army. He says : " A storm is a 

 decided or violent disturbance of the atmosphere, which 

 moves from place to place. This disturbance may or may 

 not be accompanied by precipitation, such as rain or snow; 

 but the area of disturbance must move from point to point, 

 and there must be a decided transfer of air, indicated either 

 by stormy surface winds or by marked changes of pressure. 

 Again, it may be wide-spread, travelling across the country 

 slowly, or narrow and violent, cutting a track a few 

 hundred yards wide and a mile in length. In general, an 

 increase in the velocity of the .wind twenty per cent above 

 its mean average velocity indicates that it is a storm wind.'' 



Now, a cyclone is a large storm, from one hundred to a 

 thousand miles in diameter, and moving slowly across the 

 country, generally accompanied in the East by cloudy, rainy 

 weather and a falling temperature, and by clearing weather 

 in the West. A tornado should be distinguished from a* 

 cyclone. A tornado is a narrow storm, which cuts a narrow 

 path, but clears everything before it. 



Now, these storms as they travel across the country have 

 certain well-defined laws, and it is a knowledge of these 

 laws which enables the forecaster to make any deductions 

 whatever on the probable weather. In this latitude the 

 storms always move from the west toward the east, and the 

 winds always blow towards the 'storm centre ; or, in other 

 words, from an area of cool, fair weather toward an area of 

 warm, rainy weather. It is sometimes very hard to under- 



