542 



NA TURE 



[April 7, 1887 



succour the Signal Service Expedition to Fort Conger ; 

 and again, when he had occasion to defend the advant- 

 ages of the mihtary character of the comljined Signal 

 Service and Weather Bureau organisation against those 

 who woidd take it from the army without making a proper 

 provision for its work in any other Department. The 

 records of his successful defence against attacks prompted 

 by implacable hate, official stubbornness, and personal 

 ignorance, are to be found in the proceedings of " Courts- 

 Martial," " Courts of Inquiry," " Committee of Congress 

 on Expenditure," and especially in the " Testimony 

 before the Joint Commission to consider the present 

 organisation of the Signal Service," &c., which latter 

 voluminous report and testimony was presented in June 

 1SS6. 



General Hazen's interest in meteorology, as before 

 said, properly dated back earlier than 1S73, at which time 

 he prepared a letter " On our Barren Lands, or the interior 

 of the United States, West of the looth Meridian, and 

 East of the Sierra Nevadas." This was published in the 

 A'ew York Tribune, February 27, 1 874, and led to a dis- 

 cussion in that paper and in the Minneapolis Tribune 

 between himself and General A. A. Custer, which is sum- 

 marised in a pamphlet of the above title, published by 

 Robert Clarke and Co., of Cincinnati, in 1S75. The 

 motive of General Hazen evidently was the protection of 

 investors and settlers against the too glowing accounts, 

 which amounted to virtual misrepresentation on the part 

 of the employes of the Northern Pacific Railroad. His 

 compilation of climatological data, and his statement of 

 personal experience based on long residence in that 

 region, largely contributed to prevent blind emigration 

 into an inhospitable country, while they doubtless also 

 contributed to direct attention to the really valuable por- 

 tions of our north-west territory, so that the permanent 

 development of that portion of the United States has 

 been furthered by his action. It was, however, at the 

 time, on his part a very characteristic outspoken exposi- 

 tion of what seemed to him a fraud and imposition perpe- 

 trated by unscrupulous financiers upon foreign immigrants 

 and over-confiding settlers and investors. 



During his connexion with the Signal Office, General 

 Hazen frequently took occasion to show his appreciation 

 of the fact that the weather predictions were essentially 

 not a matter of mere military routine, but that in all its 

 details the office had need of the work of specially trained 

 experts, that it was a mistake to shut one's eyes to the fact 

 that, in a matter of applied science like this, some of those 

 whom the scientific world recognises as meteorologists and 

 physicists must be employed, and be required to keep the 

 chief fully informed of the progress of science. Perhaps 

 this is best exemplified by a quotation from his letter of 

 March 24, 1SS6, addressed to a Committee of the House 

 on Expenditures of the War Department :— " At the be- 

 ginning of the work of the Signal Service the duty of 

 giving notice of the approach and force of storms and 

 floods for the benefit of commerce and agriculture 

 throughout the United States implied that the notices 

 should be correct, reliable, and timely, as none others 

 could possibly be of benefit ; it was therefore absolutely 

 necessary to provide for the careful study of the atmo- 

 sphere. On my accession I found every evidence from 

 popular criticism that still further progress in weather 

 predictions was expected. I therefore emphasised espe- 

 cially the necessity of the study of the instruments and 

 methods of observing, and the investigation of the laws 



of the changes going on in the atmosphere It is 



evident by these successive steps that in addition to 

 knowledge gained for current work the office is powerfully 

 contributing towards the establishment of a deductive 

 science of meteorology which will eventually give us a 

 solid, rational basis for predictions, thereby improving on 

 the empirical rules by which predictions have generally 

 been made hitherto-" .And he adds that he was led more 



especially to assist in the researches on the sun's heat by 

 reason of the encouragement given him by the late 

 President Garfield, whose " last words to me were, ' Give 

 both hands of fellowship and aid to scientific men.'" 



As a further illustration of General Hazen's appreciation 

 of the scientific needs of the office must be noted his 

 appointment of Prof. William Fer-rel as meteorologist, and 

 of Prof. T. C. Mendenhall as electrician. To the latter, 

 all matters relating to standards, instruments, and instru- 

 mental research were also committed. Nor did General 

 Hazen stop here ; by appointing several younger men to 

 positions as junior professors he largely increased the 

 amount of study and research that the office was able 

 to perform, and by publishing a series of professional 

 papers and smaller notes, he took the final steps necessary 

 to stimulate every man to do his best. 



Labouring in this same direction, he sought to elevate 

 the intelligence and scientific training of the Signal 

 Corps proper by enlisting College graduates as far as 

 possible, by extending the course of instruction for obser- 

 vers, and by establishing a course of higher instruction 

 for commissioned officers. 



In still another direction General Hazen showed his 

 devotion to scientific interests, namely, by his desire 

 to conform as thoroughly as possible to the recoinmenda- 

 tions of the International Meteorological Conferences. 

 These recommendation-, as soon as received in the 

 printed Minutes of the Conferences, were, by General 

 Hazen's orders, carefully examined, and instructions at 

 once prepared calculated to introduce methods of obser- 

 vation and publication in conformity with the recom- 

 mendations of the leading meteorologists of the world. 



Among the items specially noteworthy wherein General 

 Hazen developed new paths of activity for this service, 

 may be especially mentioned the study of local storms : 

 first, tornadoes, which were especially assigned to Prof. 

 Hazen so far as a collection of general statistics is con- 

 cerned, and to Prof. Mendenhall so far as concerns the 

 electrical phenomena proper. The study of atmospheric 

 electricity was especially authorised, in 1884, by an order 

 of the Secretary of War transmitting the resolutions of 

 the International Electrical Conference held in Paris the 

 preceding year. After full consultations with numerous 

 electricians throughout the country. General Hazen de- 

 cided that a daily map of electric potential showing 

 lines of equi-potential similar to the iso-barometric lines, 

 offered hopeful prospect of eventually leading to a method 

 of predicting the formation and motion of thunderstorms 

 and tornadoes. But the methods of observation and the 

 apparatus needed first to be determined upon after care- 

 ful experimental work. This whole matter was, therefore, 

 in 1S85, committed to the hands of Prof Mendenhall. 



Perhaps the most important item in internal adminis- 

 tration, so far as it affects the permanent scientific value 

 of the office work, was the effort heartily furthered by 

 G.neral Hazen to improve the accuracy and international 

 coinparability of our instrumental equipment. The 

 standards of the International Bureau of Weights and 

 Measures were recognised by him as being the proper 

 legal standards for this office, and every effort was made to 

 determine the corrections needed to reduce the past as 

 well as the current meteorological observations of the 

 office to agree therewith. 



Perhaps the generous breadth of General Hazen's 

 views, the absence of injurious jealousies, and his con- 

 fidence in the principle that the Weather Bureau would 

 be strengthened by the widest diffusion of an intelligent 

 appreciation of meteorology, are in nothing more clearly 

 shown than in the earnestness with which he stimulate^ 

 the formation of State weather services and encouraged 

 the study of meteorology in every school and college. He 

 was painfully impressed by the disastrous influence upon 

 individuals and business of the widespread and utterly 

 absurd predictions of the storms and weather of 



