650 The Smithsonian Institution 



ing to the memoirs of John Quincy Adams, a letter from Espy 

 was received in 1842 by the Committee on the Smithsonian 

 Bequest, in which he proposed that " a portion of the fund 

 should be appropriated for simultaneous meteorological ob- 

 servations all over the Union, with him for central national 

 meteorologist, stationed at Washington, with a comfortable 

 salary." 1 



In December, 1846, Henry was elected Secretary of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, and, already familiar with the meteor- 

 ological work done at the Albany Academy 2 during his ad- 

 ministration there, he was quick to urge in his ''.programme 

 of organization " "a system of extended meteorological obser- 

 vations for solving the problem of American storms." 



In a letter to Jared Eliot, dated Philadelphia, July 16, 1747, 

 Franklin, our first great scientist, expressed the opinion, not 

 original with him, however, 3 that " the course of the storm is 

 from southwest to northeast." The work of subsequent me- 

 teorologists had all tended to show that storms did progress 

 in accordance with definite laws, and that most storms began 

 in the west and traveled toward the east. Henry was not 

 satisfied with simply urging this matter upon the authorities, 

 for he returns to it in his first report and says: "Of late years, 

 in our country, more additions have been made to meteorol- 



1 " The Smithsonian Institution : Docu- tural Report for 1855," page 369. Among the 



ment Relative to Its Origin and History." academies where meteorological observations 



Edited by William J. Rhees. Page 784. were taken was the Albany Academy. See 



Washington, 1879. also page 212, " Memorial of Joseph Henry." 



2 A local system of meteorological ob- 3 Abbe, Cleveland, " Historical Notes on 



servations was established in the State of the Systems of Weather Telegraphy, and 



New York, in 1825, and has been uninter- Especially Their Development in the United 



ruptedly continued from that time until the States." American Journal of Science, Vol- 



present. Each of the academies, which par- ume II, page 82, August, 1871. In a foot- 



ticipated in the literature fund of the State, note Abbe says, "Earlier than Franklin must 



was furnished with a thermometer and rain have been Lewis Evans, who, according to 



gauge, and directed to make three daily ob- Hon. T. Pownall, M. P., published in 1749 in 



servations relative to the temperature, the di- Philadelphia, the brief statement of this 



rection of the wind, cloudiness," etc. Joseph general law." See also Lorin Blodget's 



Henry in his paper, "Meteorology in its "Climatology of the United States," page 



Connection with Agriculture," in "Agricul- 379, Philadelphia, 1857. 



