26 Professor Cleveland Abbe, M.A. [Jan. 29, 



Washington. In old Anglo-American law, however, the apparent 

 noon and sunrise and sunset are still legal. 



The simultaneous observations that are in the hands of our observers 

 throughout the country by 10 min. after 7*00 are corrected, reduced and 

 enciphered (five cipher words generally convey the whole message), 

 and are personally carried to the adjacent telegraph office, unless, as 

 most frequently happens, there is a special telegraph line between the 

 two offices. The lines of wire passing through successive distant 

 stations towards the central station at Washington are for a few 

 minutes entirely at the disposal of the Signal office, and lead into a 

 special room in our building, where some half-dozen operators are 

 seated ; in a few minutes (rarely more than five) all the messages have 

 been received from stations along any one line of wire, and in from 

 twenty to thirty minutes all may be received from the whole country, 

 including those from Canada. The total number of stations thus 

 heard from is usually about 150 ; they spread over a region of 1,800 

 miles north and south, by 3,000 east and west. Copies of these 

 despatches go simultaneously to other cities where maps and predic- 

 tions are also made, but we will confine our attention to Washington. 

 Adjoining our telegraph room is the room for charting and predicting ; 

 here one may see at a central desk the so-called " translator " to whom 

 telegrams are brought as soon as received. He, having our cipher code 

 committed to memory, immediately reads aloud Meteorological items. 

 Around the room are desks for the clerks who do the charting and 

 for a type-setter, as also for a clerk who compiles a tabular bulletin 

 oi reports ; all listen to the translator and immediately write or chart 

 such of the items as they individually need. Thus one charts the 

 barometric departures and their changes ; another the temperature 

 departures and changes ; another the clouds and their motion, the dew 

 point and the maximum or minimum temperature ; but the principal 

 ^map is considered to be that which shows the wind and weather, 

 rainfall, temperature and reduced barometer. On this latter map the 

 " predicting officer " or " Young Prob " draws the isobars and 

 isotherms, then makes a tracing of them and sends that to the litho- 

 graphic printer who is in the printing-room on the ground floor 

 immediately beneath. Simultaneously the type-setter sends to the 

 lithographer a copy in transfer ink off the columns of figures you may see 

 an the lower right-hand portions of these morning maps. And at the 

 same time the clerk sends a copy of the bulletin of full reports. Now 

 the predictor without much hesitation dictates the synopsis and 

 probabilities that you see printed in the lower left-hand portion of these 

 maps. His dictation is not written down but is set up in type by the 

 type-setter as fast as he cares to talk. And a print of this is made in 

 transfer ink and sent down to the printing room. 



