ccxlviii 



GEOGRAPHICAL. 



Explorations in many unexplored or little known parts of the world 

 have been carried on, and the different Government expeditions in our 

 own country have been particularly active. The return of the British 

 Arctic Expedition created an unusual interest, and the scheme which Capt. 

 Howgate, of the Signal Service, haslately advocated for successfully reach- 

 ing the North Pole, by establishing temporary colonies north of lat. Si"' 

 N., near the shore of Lady Franklin's Bay, is well worthy the consideration 

 of Congress. 



METEOROLOGICAL. 



The tornado in Warren County, Iowa, was among the most serious and 

 disastrous that have been known in this part of the country, and that 

 in St. Charles County, in our own State, was quite severe; but all our 

 meteorological excesses dwindle into insignificance as one reads of the ter- 

 rible nature of the late hurricane in the East Indies, which engulfed whole 

 islands and towns, and sent hundreds of thousands of human beings to 

 untimely death. 



The meteor that passed over this region, from S.W. Kansas to N.W. 

 Pennsylvania, on the evening of the 21st of last December, was one of the 

 mo§t brilliant ever witnessed here. 



The work of the Signal Service continues to grow in popular favor 

 and in usefulness, and the appearance of the volume just published by the 

 Smithsonian Institution, entitled "Tables of the Distribution and Varia- 

 tion of the Atmospheric Temperature in the United States,'' marks an im- 

 portant event in Meteorology. 



The Meteorological Congress, assembled at Vienna in 1873, submitted 

 a proposition urging the establishment of stations for taking one simulta- 

 neous observation daily, of such character as to be Suitable for the prepa- 

 ration of synoptic charts. Immediate organization was begun, and by 

 July I, 1875, when the first International map was issued from the Signal 

 Office at Washington, reports were received from 268 stations, so distri- 

 buted as to carry the observations all around the Northern hemisphere on 

 land. Since that time the number of stations has been increased to 397, 

 and now, with the view of further extending the system. General Myer 

 has succeeded in getting the cooperation of the Navy Department, which 

 has issued orders to commanders of all vessels to have one observation 

 made daily on all ships, wherever situated, at 7:35 a.m., Washington 

 mean time. It is hoped that the similar cooperation of all nations will be 



received. 



OUR transactions and proceedings. 



At the annual meeting for 1873 we resolved from that time forth to pub- 

 lish the Journal of Proceedings in installments of sixteen pages, and that 

 it be the Recording Secretary's duty to prepare an official report of said 

 proceedings for the press, the pages to be numbered in Roman numerals. 

 This was accompanied by other resolutions providing for the speedy pub- 



