THE WEATHER BUREAU' 



By Willis L. Moore, LL. D., Chief U. S. Weather Bureau 



ABOUT the only knowledge that 

 most people have of the workings 

 of the United States Weather 

 Bureau of the Department of Agricult- 

 ure is gathered from the daily predic- 

 tion of rain or snow that they encounter 

 at the breakfast table as they glance 

 over the morning paper. They base 

 their estimate of the utility of the 

 weather service on the accuracy of the 

 predictions thus hastily scanned, and 

 many are prone to inquire whether it is 

 true that this service has really made a 

 place for itself in the great industrial 

 economy of our country ; whether or 

 not an adequate return is made for the 

 expenditure of over $1,000,000 annu- 

 ally ; whether the science of weather 

 forecasting has reached its highest de- 

 gree of accuracy, and w^hether it holds 

 out possibilities of future improvement. 

 They would doubtless be amazed if they 

 knew the thousand and one ramifications 

 through w^hich it reaches, daily, prob- 

 ably more than one-half of our adult 

 population. 



The United States Government spends 

 more for scientific research than any 

 other country in the world . Today every 

 wheel turns with scientific precision, and 

 the arts, the manufactures, and the com- 

 merce of this wonderful country are, by 

 the aid of systematic knowledge, being 

 developed far beyond the dreams of the 

 most optimistic person of a quarter of a 

 century ago. The ingenuity of the 

 Yankee and the skill of the American 

 mechanic are only physical and outward 

 manifestations of the inward spirit whose 

 life-has been called into existence by the 

 many schools, colleges, and polytechnic 

 institutions with which our broad land 



is dotted and which, through the knowl- 

 edge that they reveal of the forces of 

 nature, enable man to harness the in- 

 visible powers and make them obedient 

 to his will. Probably in no way have 

 we shown our aptitude in divining from 

 apparent confusion some fundamental 

 principles and in applying those princi- 

 ples to the commerce and the industr)^ 

 of our country more than in the devel- 

 opment of the present meteorological 

 service. Where but a few years ago 

 man thought that chaos reigned supreme 

 we are now, by the aid of simultaneous 

 daily meteorological observations, able 

 to trace out the harmonious relations of 

 many physical laws that were previousl}' 

 but little understood. 



DFVELOPMENT OF METEOROLOGICAL 

 SCIENCE 



It will be interesting to note that at 

 the time of the founding of the first of 

 the thirteen colonies, at Jamestown, Va. , 

 in 1607, practically nothing was known 

 of the properties of the air or of meth- 

 ods for measuring its phenomena. It 

 was not until 1643, twenty-three 3^ears 

 after the landing of the Pilgrims on 

 Plymouth Rock, that Torricelli discov- 

 ered the principle of the barometer and 

 rendered it possible to measure the 

 weight of the superincumbent air at 

 any spot where the wonderful, 3^et sim- 

 ple, little instrument might, be placed. 

 Torricelli' s great teacher, Galileo, died ■ 

 without knowing why nature, under 

 certain conditions, abhors a vacuum ; 

 but he had discovered the principle of 

 the thermometer. The data from the 

 readings of these two instruments form 



*An address presented at the Convention of Weather Bureau Officials, Milwaukee, Wiscon 

 sin, August 27-29, 1901. 



