METEOROLOGY AND THE SIGNAL SERVICE. 393 
No reason suggests itself to me to doubt that meteorological observations, 
sufficiently minute to be useful, can be made at different posts and points deter- 
mined upon. 
The transmission of such intelligence as is gained can be so systemized as to 
insure its certainty. Military posts are now scattered from the Pacific coast, 
throughout the interior, to the Atlantic. The branching lines of telegraph, 
increasing in number, are daily binding them more closely together, and bringing 
them in communicating range of the great business centers. Other points of 
observation and report could be established gradually. In time, even the ocean 
cables may be made to serve a part. Meteorological observations, statistics, and 
reports giving the presence, the course, and the extent of storms—the telegraph 
can announce their location, as stated, and their probable approach, as it would, 
in time of war, those of an enemy. 
It seemed fair to conclude that, with experience, the direction and range of 
many storms could be foretold with reasonable accuracy. It is certain they might 
be in some instances. As I write this letter, I quote, as a commonplace illus. 
tration, a storm report I find in the Washington Chronicle, of this morning (Jan. 
18), made as an item of newspaper news only, and probably without any care, 
concert, or haste as to its reporting. 
St. Louis, January 17.—A terrible storm of thunder and lightning, wind and 
hail, passed over the city /as¢ evening. 
This was the evening of January 16. 
Cuicaco, January 17.—During the thunder-storm J/ast night the mercury 
stood at 42°. 
This was the night of January 16. 
LOUISVILLE, January 17.—A terrible tornado visited Cave City Station, on 
the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, at an early hour ¢hzs morning. 
This was the early morning of January 17. 
CINCINNATI, January 17.—An unsually heavy storm of wind and hail, 
accompanied with thunder and lightning, occurred here ¢hzs morning. 
This was the morning of January 17. 
PITTSBURG, January 17.—A heavy rain storm, and thunder and lightning, 
visited this place at xoon to-day. 
It is fair to presume that the storm of lightning, hail, and rain, the outskirts 
of which passed over Washington about six o’clock last evening (the evening of 
January 17), and was noticed by many as usual, was a part of this storm tele- 
graphed at St. Louis on the evening of the 16th instant. If so, it could have been 
reported almost hourly in its course to this city. 
A single storm report, wisely made upon the plan suggested by you, might 
save, perhaps, many times the cost of the experiment. Sufficient successes of 
organized systems of reports, having similar ends in view, in England, France, 
and on the shores of the Mediterranean, are already of record to warrant the 
endeavor on this side of the Atlantic, and, to suggest the thought, it would be 
