THE WEATHER SPHYNX 621 
METEOROLOGY. 
THE WEATHER SPHYNX. 
C. A. SHAW, OF ERIE SIGNAL SERVICE STATION. 
\A Lecture before the Natural History Society of Erie.l 
When the proposition was made to me to give a "chalk talk " upon the 
weather, I appreciated the compliment implied, but I questioned the possession 
of the requisite qualifications for the duty. It was desired to have presented to 
the- audience the methods employed by the Signal Service in the formulating of 
their weather predictions. It was implied that being in the service I should be 
acquainted with the modus operandi. And yet I am not. I merely know, gen- 
erally, in regard to meteorological data, and the general application of certain 
principles; but the chief office neither discloses nor, so far as I know, has it any 
recondite special methods. When they get hold of a capable man with a genius 
for the profession, a man with a knowledge of celestial mathematics, natural phil- 
osophy and cautious common sense, they set him to the task and in two or three 
years turn out an assistant "prob." But how he separates the essential facts of 
the weather reports from the non-essentials is never made public and probably is 
only learned by experience. 
I think, myself, that the service is hampered and hampers itself by an un- 
necessary collocation of foreign materials and duties., Facts of natural history, 
recondite analyses of principles, of chemistry, of astronomy, of ornithology, etc., 
interesting in themselves, valuable in the sum of human knowledge, but not of 
present importance to meteorology. Not to speak of the military accompaniments, 
there is a terrible loss of time, money and energy and good feeling, in the 
lack of concentrating the intelligence of the members of the corps upon the few 
essentials of actual weather prediction and letting everything else go. 
As the sergeant sinks the man of originality in the routine of his rank, 
he loses that very quality of intellectual alertness that makes him most valuable 
to the office he is expected to serve. Perhaps I should say there should be no 
one in the service lower than a commissioned officer, only that implies the knowl- 
edge of military duties. 
That there is an antagonism between military and scientific duties, I feel so 
strongly that even the loss of any rank would I think be preferable. I do not 
think a meteorologist is at all benefitted by knowing that a general outranks a 
major, or that there is a difference between closing up a regiment and shutting 
up a book. 
" Areas of low barometer " have been so frequently referred to of late years 
