26 EEPOBT OP THE SECRETARY. 



The latter half of the volume is occupied with materials for the 

 critical study of three storms in 1859, one of which occurred in March 

 and the other two in September, collected from the records of the In- 

 stitution, and prepared for publication by Professor J. H. Coffin, of 

 Lafayette College, Baston, Pennsylvania. One of the important ob- 

 jects aimed at in establishing the meteorological observations of the 

 Smithsonian Institution was the collection of data for the critical ex- 

 amination of the development and progress of the extended commo- 

 tions of the atmosphere which occur during the autumn, winter, and 

 spring, over the middle or temperate portions of North America. It 

 is well known that two hypotheses as to the direction and progress 

 of the wind in these storms have been advocated with an exhibition 

 of feeling unusual in the discussion of a problem of a purely scien- 

 tific character, and which, with sufficient available data, is readily 

 susceptible of a definite solution. According to one hypothesis the 

 motion of the air in these storms is gyratory; according to the other it 

 is in right lines toward a central point, or toward an irregular elon- 

 gated middle space. It is hoped that the data here given will be 

 considered of importance in settling, at least approximately, these 

 questions as to the general phenomena of American storms. 



These two quarto volumes of meteorological results for the six 

 years 1854 to 1859 inclusive, embracing nearly two thousand pages, 

 together with a volume covering very nearly the same period of time 

 published by the War Department, probably form an unsurpassed 

 body of materials for the investigation of meteorological phenomena 

 over so wide an extent of country. The tables of the War Depart- 

 ment embrace nearly two hundred quarto pages of reductions for five 

 years, 1855 to 1859, inclusive, and form an appendix to the "statis- 

 tical report on the sickness and mortality in the army of the United 

 States," published in 1860, compiled by Assistant Surgeon R. H. 

 Coolidge, under the direction of Dr. Lawson, Surgeon General United 

 States army. The original records, both in the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion and War Department, from which the results contained in these 

 three volumes were deduced, are open to the examination of persons 

 who wish to make investigations more minute, or of a more extended 

 nature than can be embraced in general tables. 



It is regretted that we have not the means at present of continuing 

 the reduction of all the records as received from the observers, and 

 of publishing the results. This want, however, is supplied to a 

 limited extent by the publication of the reductions of temperature and 



