November 1, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



579 



tegral part of the great whole which con- 

 stitutes the efficient Bureau. 



A brief retrospect of the forecast work 

 may not be without compensating results in 

 our efforts at future improvements. 



Forecasts were begun in the United States 

 about 25 years ago, and have, during the 

 past decade, become of such benefit to the 

 many and diversified interests of the coun- 

 try that with one accord the people now ac- 

 knowledge their value and applaud all ef- 

 forts to improve and extend their usefulness. 

 Fifty million dollars is a low estimate of the 

 value of property placed in jeopardy by one 

 West Indian hurricane sweeping up our 

 Atlantic coast. 



Predictions were first called ' Probabili- 

 ties' and were made for districts, each 

 comprising several States, and included a 

 prediction as to the probable change in 

 barometer. Later the prediction as to ba- 

 rometer was omitted. Forecasting by dis- 

 tricts was soon shown not to be specific 

 enough as to boundary, and the designations 

 applied were not well understood by the 

 people ; hence forecasting by States was 

 adopted. 



Forecasts were made only at the Central 

 Office at Washington, and the local observers 

 were allowed to disseminate no other, nor 

 to give public expression to any opinion of 

 their own which might be construed into 

 a forecast. Considering the very limited 

 training of the observers and the lack of all 

 charted meteorological conditions for their 

 study and enlightenment, the wisdom of 

 that regulation could hardly be questioned. 



With the transfer of the Weather Bureau 

 to the Department of Agriculture came the 

 inauguration of far more liberal and pro- 

 gressive ideas. The office of Local Fore- 

 cast Official was created for such observers 

 as had shown special fitness for forecast 

 work, and they were assigned to duty at 

 the more important agricultural, com- 

 mercial or maritime centers, with instruc- 



tions to carefully study the local climatol- 

 ogy of their sections, so that products 

 that are indigenous to limited areas, or 

 interests which are of special impoi'tance to 

 particular sections, might have such appli- 

 cation of the weather forecasts as the inti- 

 mate personal attentions of a competent 

 local official could give. 



The changes enumerated have been care- 

 fully tested and found to be beneficent in 

 purpose and worthy of continued and per- 

 manent application. Thus has the fore- 

 casting system of to-day slowly developed 

 during the past 25 years. Is it not the es- 

 sential feature of the Weather Bureau ? Is 

 it not the nucleus around which all de- 

 partments of thought and study must rotate 

 and become auxiliary, if the original intent 

 of Congress made manifest by the establish- 

 ment of a National storm-warning system 

 is to be carried foward to as successful an 

 operation as the present knowledge of the 

 physics of the air will permit ? It is hoped 

 that discoveries may be made relative 

 to the controlling and modifying forces of 

 storms which shall raise the standard of 

 forecasting accuracy attained by our most 

 expert officials, who have had all the benefits 

 to be derived from many years of patient 

 and intelligent observation of storms, from 

 the time of their inception in, or entrance 

 within our daily observed and charted terri- 

 tory, until they have been dissipated or 

 have passed eastward beyond our range of 

 vision. 



It may be well to consider what class of 

 forecasts can be most successfully made by 

 our more or less empirical methods, the 

 object being to extend the work along such 

 lines of activity as promise the most benefi- 

 cial results. 



As to this proposition it is doubtless con- 

 ceded by all that when pronounced high 

 and low-pressure areas dominate the 

 weather conditions and the changes in 

 wind, temperature and weather are charac- 



