58o 



NA TURE 



{April 23, 1 J 



our Universities ought to be able to frame such a course, 

 urges that a committee of teachers who have carefully 

 considered the evidence here supplied should be able to 

 draw up a practical scheme sufficiently definite, detailed, 

 elastic, and progressive to secure its wide adoption. Un- 

 less this is done, a teacher's work cannot be measured, 

 and he will get neither credit nor cash for it from his 

 judges ; and no amount of public opinion will really 

 make such teaching general while this remains so. A 

 good practical suggestion in accordance with these con- 

 clusions is that some experienced teacher should devote 

 his power to the preparation of cheap leaflets, not stitched 

 together, for a brief inductive course, from which each 

 teacher might select a series according to his circum- 

 stances. W. Odell 



THE WORK OF THE U.S. SIGNAL OFFICE 



UNDER GENERAL HAZEN ^ 

 "PHE recent examination by the joint commission of 

 -*■ General Hazen and other witnesses, as to the effi- 

 ciency and economy of the present administration of the 

 Signal Office, is said to have brought out several state- 

 ments as to the character of the work done by the Weather 

 Bureau, and the progress made by it during the last few- 

 years. The following is a brief summary of these, and 

 especially of Prof. Abbe's statement showing the status 

 and work being pursued during the present fiscal year : — 



The Signal Service employs 1 chief, 14 second lieu- 

 tenants, and 500 enlisted men, of whom 150 are sergeants, 

 30 are corporals, and 220 are privates, but all generally 

 known as Signal Service observers. These 515 persons 

 constitute the Signal Corps proper : but 6 officers detailed 

 from the line of the army are also temporarily attached to 

 the service ; and these have control of the disbursements, 

 the property, the weather-predictions, the display of 

 signals, the testing and comparison of instruments, the 

 arctic stations, the international bulletin, the monthly 

 weather review, the Pacific Coast section, and other main 

 divisions of work. 



These 6 officers, by the operation of the present laws, 

 are being diminished in number by 2 annually, their 

 places being filled by promotions from among the sergeants 

 of the corps ; so that in a few years the service will employ 

 only officers and men of the Signal Corps proper. This 

 elimination of officers who have had from ten to twenty 

 years' experience in the Signal Service and the army is 

 somewhat deprecated by General Hazen, who is very 

 naturaliy loath to lose their services, while they themselves 

 are loath to go ; although it is evident that the corps 

 proper already contains abundant and excellent material 

 for the future needs of the service. 



The Signal Service also employs a number of civilians 

 — namely, 2 chief clerks, several clerks of lower classes, 

 and a scientific staff of 3 professors, 4 junior professors, 

 and 1 bibliographer, and a large number of civilian 

 observers, printers, messengers, artisans, &c. — at various 

 points throughout the country. The number of civilian 

 employees at the central or Washington office is 64, all of 

 whom give their whole time to the work. The total of 

 those employed at other stations is apparently much 

 greater than this ; but each is employed only a short time 

 daily, and most of them receive but 25 cents per day for 

 some one special observation and record. The enlisted 

 men of the service occupy about 200 stations scattered 

 throughout the United States, including Alaska, at an 

 average distance of 200 miles apart. About an equal 

 number of stations are also occupied by civilians, observ- 

 ing the height of water in the rivers, or displaying storm- 

 signals. From about 4500 other civilian observers reports 

 are received gratuitously by mail on weekly or monthly 

 forms. These observers are classified about as follows : 



voluntary land observers, 270 ; voluntary marine ob- 

 servers, 480 ; international observers, 330 ; Canadian 

 observers, 18; state weather service, 450; tornado 

 observers, 1200 ; thunderstorm reporters, 2000. 



The following are some of the more prominent and 

 important steps of progress taken during General Hazen's 

 administration : — 



The introduction of consulting specialists and civilian 

 experts in the available working force of the office ; the 

 assignment of selected sergeants and privates to work 

 demanding a higher education and special aptness for 

 investigation or study ; the organised study of tornadoes, 

 thunderstorms, atmospheric electricity, and other im- 

 portant novel fields of meteorological study ; the intro- 

 duction of weather-signals upon railroad-trains for the 

 benefit of the farmers, and of local town-signals for the 

 benefit of each community ; the establishment of more 

 severe rules for the verification of predictions, so that the 

 85 per cent, claimed at present means much more than it 

 did a few years ago : the enlistment of a higher grade of 

 men, the improvement of the courses of instruction for 

 men and officers, the compilation of a working index to 

 the literature of meteorology and the signal-office library, 

 the organisation of new divisions in the office, especially 

 of the study-room, the physical laboratory, the marine 

 division, and the examiner's division ; the publication of 

 a monthly summary of international simultaneous ob- 

 servation, with a weather-chart showing especially the 

 storms on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that affect the 

 United States ; the special study of atmospheric moisture 

 with a view to improved methods of determining this 

 factor ; the special study of the exposure of thermometers, 

 and correct methods for determining the temperature of 

 the air ; the maintenance of two polar and several 

 auxiliary stations in pursuance of an international system 

 for the study of the meteorology of the Polar regions : the 

 adoption of many of the recommendations of the European 

 International Meteorological Congresses looking to uni- 

 formity of methods throughout the world ; the adoption 

 of improved methods of reducing barometric observations 

 to sea-level ; the stimulus given to the formation of State 

 Weather Services (this great advance has been wholly 

 due to Gen. Hazen, who has not hesitated to declare him- 

 self in favour of co-operation, and not monopoly ; by his 

 circulars and assistance over fifteen States have been led 

 to develop minute internal systems for the study of 

 local climate and the dissemination of weather-pre- 

 dictions) ; the stimulus given to higher scientific work 

 by members of the Signal Service, by requiring and 

 publishing professional papers, signal-notes, treatises, 

 &c. ; the addition to the Signal Office of a few experts in 

 scientific matters, who are responsible for the proper con- 

 duct of work requiring special study ; the establishment 

 of a high class of standard instruments, and more exact 

 methods for testing-apparatus furnished to the stations, 

 thus assuring against any deterioration in the accuracy of 

 the work through many years to come ; the encourage- 

 ment and co-operation in scientific work, bearing on 

 meteorology, by outside parties, such as spectroscopy, 

 the study of solar heat and atmospheric absorption, and 

 the prosecution of balloon-voyages ; the adoption of a 

 uniform standard of time for all observers ; the adoption 

 of a uniform standard of gravity for barometric reduc- 

 tions ; the introduction of new special cautionary signals 

 for high north-west winds and cold waves ; the extension 

 of signal-service stations in Alaska for the proper study 

 of storms that strike the Pacific coast, and are followed 

 by the severe cold waves from Manitoba. 



In the prosecution of these and other multifarious 

 labours the signal-service certainly demands a high de- 

 gree of organisation, discipline, and intelligence ; and it 

 is by no means clear that this can be obtained in any 

 better way than by a proper combination of military and 

 civilian observers and scientific men. 



