METEOROLOGY AND THE SIGNAL SERVICE, 391 
or suggestions which may be required in organizing the proposed system of 
weather telegrams will be cheerfully furnished by this institution. 
I have the honor to be, your obedient servant, 
JosEPpH HENRY. 
Hon. H. E. Paine, 
LFlouse of Representatives. 
YALE COLLEGE, January 10, 1870. 
Dear Sir: I have carefully read the memorial of Professor I. A. Lapham, 
recommending the establishment of a system of observations to give warning of 
the approach of violent storms, and heartily approve of the object of that memo- 
rial. It cannot be doubted that violent storms are subject to natural laws; that 
these laws have to some extent been discovered; and there is reason to believe 
that by patient investigation these laws may become still better known. One 
principle which has been derived by induction from a large number of cases is 
that over the United States violent storms do not long remain stationary in one 
locality, but travel from place to place; usually from west to east, or from south- 
west to northeast, and with a velocity varying from zero to forty miles per hour. 
What this direction is, and what is the velocity of its progress, can be ascertained 
in the case of any storm by a comparison of a sufficient number of recorded 
observations ; and if every storm for a few years were tracked in this manner, 
the laws which they obey would become pretty well known. After these laws 
had been fully discovered, it would be possible, whenever a storm was raging, to 
give warning of its approach to places toward which the storm was advancing, 
several hours before its violence was actually experienced. If all violent storms 
come from the west or southwest, then by a system of combined observations it 
would be possible to give warning, at the port of New York, of the approach of 
every violent storm; and such warning would unquestionably be the means of 
preventing many disasters to the commerce of that port. It is believed that our 
knowledge of storms is already sufficiently precise to enable a competent meteor- 
ologist to furnish information which would be of great value to commerce, pro- 
vided he had at his command a sufficient corps of observers scattered over a 
considerable area to the west and southwest, and also had the means of transmit- 
ting his warnings immediately by telegraph; and if such a system were pursued 
for several years, it could scarcely fail to conduct to more precise knowledge, 
which would render it possible to give more reliable and definite warning of the 
approach of dangerous storms. 
In order to secure the objects here contemplated, it would be indispensable 
to have observations from a pretty large number of stations at intervals not 
exceeding one or two hundred miles, and scattered over a region to the west and 
southwest of those points for which the warnings were regarded as specially 
important. These observations should include all the meteorological instru- 
ments, but more particularly the barometer with the direction and force of the 
wind. ‘The observations should be made daily at fixed hours, and should be 
