398 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
arguments to bear in the shape of statistics, showing the loss of shipping on our 
lakes alone for aseries of years. His views were brought strongly to the notice 
of Congress in 1869, in a memorial replete with interest. By a coincidence, 
papers and maps in reference to the same subject were prepared in the War De- 
partment at the time the memorial was submitted. 2 
The matter was finally brought to the attention of Congress by the Hon. H. 
E. Paine, of Wisconsin, who offered the joint resolution which became a law on 
the oth of February, 1870. 
re ok 2 * = * x * 
The fact that in the north temperate zone storms almost invariably come from 
some westerly point, and follow an easterly course, renders the application of 
storm warnings in the United States of more immediate utility than in Europe, 
where the principal points, being on the eastern coast, are first affected by the 
storms. Here, as soon as a storm appears in the territory bordering the Rocky 
Mountains, it becomes possible, 1n many cases, with proper arrangements, to 
telegraph its approach to eastern cities in time to enable preparations being made 
against its destructive influence. It is not absolutely necessary that the observers 
or reporters should be scientific men, though the higher their grade of education — 
the better, but that they should promptly announce the existence of a storm, 
with other meteorological facts, to the places lying within its probable path. It 
is essential they should be held to a proper responsibility, and be under strict 
official control. The form of report must be carefully devised and regulated. A 
series of reports of this kind will make possible in time the mapping out of each 
individual storm, and from this material can be deduced some general laws gov- 
erning their movement. For example, the great storm of March 13-17, 1859, was 
thus mapped out by Professor Lapham, and its course found to run from western 
Texas, where it first struck our coast, in a northeast direction, to Lake Michigan, 
which it reached in twenty-four hours, thence to the Atlantic coast in another 
twenty-four hours, and finally leaving the continent at St. Johns, Newfoundland, 
in ninety-six hours after its first announcement. Here was a regular movement 
about as rapid as a railroad train, and as easily kept under supervision. 
In a memorial to the Forty-First Congress, Professor Lapham says: ‘‘If we 
could have even a few hours’ notice of the approach of the great storms that bring 
these calamities upon us, much of their mischief might be avoided.”’ 
“Tt is quite clear,” writes an eminent meteorologist, referring to these and 
other premonitions seemingly established by meteorological statistics, ‘‘ that if we 
could have the services of a competent meteorologist at some suitable point on 
the lakes, with the aid of a sufficient corps of observers, with compared instru- 
ments, at stations located every two or three hundred miles toward the west, and 
the co-operation of the telegraph companies, the origin and progress of these 
great storms could be fully traced; their velocity and direction of motion ascer- 
tained; their destructive force and other characteristics noted, all in time to give 
warning of their probable effect upon the lakes.” 
