Collateral Work of the /Signal Service. 99 



l)e mentioned International meteorolog}'', Langley's magnificent 

 and unique work at mount Whitney, the contributory observa- 

 tions for the Fish commission, demanding special instruments 

 and sometimes extra observers ; extensive and, as Professor 

 Baird said, '' indispensable aid during this transition period " in 

 ethnological and other work throughout the extent of all Alaska ; 

 cooperation with the Polaris expedition ; the Cumberland sound 

 work ; the solar total eclipse of 1878 ; the investigation of the 

 locust plague ; the point Barrow and Lady Franklin bay expedi- 

 tions, which otherwise could never have started ; the Labrador 

 expedition ; the Death valley investigations ; and the western 

 Africa eclipse expedition. 



It should be borne in mind that the civilian organization now 

 in operation is due entirely to the military force. The lately 

 lauded system of local forecast officials at the more important 

 cities is simjDly a continuation of duties initiated several years 

 since, and which, as to name, compensation and scope of work, 

 were planned and carried into execution by officers of the army. 



The estimates and proposals for liberal pay to civilians in the 

 reorganized Weather bureau were also the work of an officer, 

 and the jDay obtained was not only considered exceedingly 

 liberal by the legislative branch but also by the civilian organ- 

 ization, as evinced by the omission of two professors of liighest 

 pay from the estimates of this year. 



En resume, it has been shown that the Signal corps of the 

 United States army has so conducted the meteorological work 

 entrusted to its charge as to develop) and advance meteorological 

 investigation to very near thedignity of a science, partly through 

 the high class of work done l^y the service . and partly by the 

 stimulus it has given to this work through its international system 

 and other liberal methods ; that the practical application of 

 weather forecasts has attained a degree of perfection unexcelled, 

 if even equalled, hj any other nation ; that its system of river 

 observations and flood forecasts, taking into consideration the 

 enormous area of the drainage basins and the unj^aralleled 

 amount of material interests concerned, has reached a stage com- 

 paring most favorably with that of any foreign country ; and 

 that the graphic and tabular data representing the climatic ele- 

 ments of precipitation, temperature, wind, sunshine, evaporation, 

 humidity, prevalence of cloudiness and probal^ility of rain, have 



