5S AXNUAL EEPORTS OF DEPAETMEXT OF AGRICULTURE. 



STATIONS AND OBSERVATIONS. 



NEW WEATHER BUREAU BUILDINGS. 



After considerable unavoidable delays due to war and unsettled 

 business conditions, tlie ncAV Weather Bureau observatory and tele- 

 graph office building at Cape Henry, Va., was completed and ac- 

 cepted under date of September 8, 1918. This station was fully 

 equipped with steel towers and lanterns for storm warning displays, 

 and a small electric light plant to provide illumination for dis- 

 plays, vessel-signaling, and office purposes has proved very satisfac- 

 toiT. The new building was erected on the Weather Bureau reserva- 

 tion comprising 15,000 square feet of ground on beach front at tho 

 foot of Forty -third Street, where the location is much more advanta- 

 geous than that previously had for many je^vs on the lighthouse res- 

 ervation. The old building is retained for use of the assistant ob- 

 servers. 



CHANGES AT REGULAR STATIONS. 



Narragansett Pier, E. I., station discontinued August 17, 1918. 

 Weather building and reservation placed in hands of a caretaker. 



Buildings and reservation at Mount Weather, Va., also remain 

 in possession of caretaker. 



On October 1, 1918, the important meteorological city substation. 

 Central Park, New York, in the Army Building, near Sixty-fiftli 

 Street, East, maintained continuously for about 50 years past under 

 local sui)ervision, was removed to, and installed in the remodeled 

 Belvidere Tower building, near the Eighty-first Street, West, en- 

 trance to the Park, and re-equipped as a permanently established 

 substation of the Bureau. 



Completion of a Federal building at New Haven, Conn., in which 

 accommodations Avere provided by the Treasury Department, enabled 

 the Bureau to effect removal thereto February 15, 1919, and save 

 rental heretofore paid for quarters in a private building. 



Notwithstanding the general increase in rentals throughout tho 

 country during the last two or three years, it has been possible 

 to effect a considerable saving to the Government by reason of the 

 5-year renewal clause in leases wdiereby the Bureau was able to I'e- 

 tain occupied quarters at prewar prices. Leases involving $G,4f)() 

 at the old rate, which now expire by limitation at seven stations 

 where increase is demanded, required renewal at a total increased 

 cost to the Bureau of $1,556 for the next fiscal year, or about 24 

 per cent of the total amount paid for such rentals. One serious 

 incident of exorbitant increase in rental compelled the Bureau re- 

 hictantly to move its station at Topeka, Kans., to quarters in a new 

 lented building. The following statement shows the present status 

 of Weather Bureau offices at field stations outside of Washington, 

 (not including Narragansett Pier or Mount Weather) : 



Free quarters and accommodations: 



In Observatory buildings, owned and controlled by tlie Weatlier 



Bureau 45 



In State UniA^ersity buildings 5 



In Federal buildings ^2 



Total free of rental 1-'-^ 



