394 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
almost wrong to fail to make it in a country so extended and having such shipping 
interests as our own. 
Such information of storms as could be gained, once received at chosen points, 
could be collated, posted, and announced in merchants’ exchanges and to boards 
of trade in the principal seaport and lake cities, and plans of signals similar in 
effect to the coast-storm signals put in use some years ago on the coasts of England 
and France, shown on the seaboard forts and at selected stations, by men already 
in the employ of the United States, could communicate the possible danger to 
vessels passing in sight at sea or preparing for departure from their ports. 
The brief examination I have been able to give the subject seems to show 
that, with forty-four sea-coast stations already owned by the United States, intelli- 
gence of value could be notified in this way by day or at night for the use of 
vessels in the vicinity of each of our prominent ports. 
I do not doubt that the general plan of collecting and announcing storm 
reports you initiate, well executed, with the extended knowledge and improve- 
ment to which it would lead, would save, in frequent instances, both life and 
property. The measure, once placed by enactment in some organized form, will 
grow in importance. Insurance companies, boards of trade, and commercial 
bodies, and shippers will be prompt to see the attempted benefit, and give it the 
aid of their co-operation. I hope the bill, or one having the same ends in view, 
will become a law, and I think the results to follow its passage, though they may 
not be at once attained, nor had without time, labor, and trouble, will be grate- 
fully appreciated by the commercial world. 
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
ALBERT J. MYER, 
Brevet Brigadier General and Chief Signal Officer of the Army. 
Hon. Hapert E. Paine, 
LTouse of Representatives, Washington, D. C. 
The letter of the Chief Signal Officer led to a personal interview with Gen. 
Paine, and the substitution of the following joint resolution for the bill as origi- 
nally drawn and presented : 
JOINT RESOLUTION 
To authorize the Secretary of War to provide for taking meteorological 
observations at the military stations and other points in the interior of the conti- 
nent, and for giving notice on the northern lakes and seaboard of the approach 
and force of storms. 
Be tt resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of 
America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of War be, and he hereby is, 
authorized and required to provide for taking meteorological observations at the 
military stations in the interior of the continent, and at other points in the States 
and Territories of the United States, and for giving notice on the northern lakes 
