

410 
METEOROLOGY IN AMERICA * 
IIl.—ORGANISATION OF THE UNITED STATES SIGNAL 
SERVICE. 
eee are probably few departments of the Executive 
of the United States which have been of such 
essential practical value as the Signal Service; and 
among those who have been instrumental in establishing 
it, we cannot avoid mentioning the names of the Hon, 
Halbert E. Paine of Wisconsin, the Hon. Henry L. 
Dawes of Massachusetts, and the Hon, William W. 
Belknap, Secretary of War. 

(UU LSC TTA 


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[Sep¢. 21, 1871 
It may be added that, without distinction of party, the 
whole people of the country, the press, both Houses of 
Congress, and the President, have earnestly sustained 
and advanced this important branch of the public service. 
The military system is one of the most valuable fea- 
tures in the constitution of this Signal Service for the 
benefit of Commerce. The advantages of having the 
whoie corps of weather observers in the army are manifest 
and manifold. Each observer feels the responsibility of a 
sentinel at his post, which begets in him a sentiment of 
devotion to duty the strongest of which men are capable, 
and which has often led the soldier to imitate the example 






































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































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of the Roman guard at Pompeii, who, after nearly eighteen 
centuries, was taken from its ruins in his martial position, 
showing that he had not fled before the molten flood from 
Vesuvius. Experience has proved what the sense of the | 
Government originally suggested, that observations would | 
be most punctually and scrupulously taken at the different 
Stations by men accustomed to the discipline and obe- | 
dience, even in minutest details, of army subalterns. 
They are required to work out no difficult problems in 
meteorology, but simply to observe and record the indi- 
* We are again indebted to Harper's Wi ’ for the continuation of the 
article by Prof. Maury, and the woodeuts Gnd we reproduce this week. | 
| 
cations of their instruments, and to transmit the same 
without delay or inaccuracy. In doing this work, they 
have become by tri-daily practice as expert and exact in 
reading the glasses as any of our veteran scientific men— 
indeed, as much so as a Fitzroy or a Leverrier could be. 
Regarding the Signal Corps scattered through and over 
all parts of the country, we may compare it to a regiment 
| on drill three times a day, the telegraph instantly revealing 
to the commanding officer, General Albert J. Myer, at 
Washington, the slightest failure in any observer. 
By this now widely spread and magnificently organised 
system, the United States army, engaged under the chief 
