Professor Elias Loomis. 447 



in former years? There are but few questions of science 



which can be prosecuted in this country to the same advantage 



a- in Europe. Here is one where the advantage is in ourfavor. 



Would it not he wise to devote our main strength to the 



reduction of this fortress i We need observers spread over the 



entire country at distances from each other not more than "fifty 



miles. This would require live or six hundred observers for 



the United States. About half this number of registers are 



now kept in one shape or another, and the number by 



suitable efforts might probably be doubled. Supervision is 



needed to introduce uniformity throughout, and to render some 



of the registers more complete. Is not such an enterprise 



worthy of the American Philosophical Society 1 The general 



government has for more than twenty years done something, 



and has lately manifested a disposition to do more for this object. 



If private zeal could be more generally enlisted, the war might 



soon be ended, and men would cease to ridicule the idea of our 



being able to predict an approaching storm." 



This plan of a systematic meteorological campaign was cor- 

 dially seconded by Professors Bache and Peirce. At a some- 

 what later date the American Academy of Sciences of Boston 

 appointed a committee, of which Professor Loomis was chair- 

 man, to urge upon the proper authorities the execution of the 

 plan. The American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia 

 united its voice with that of the Academy. About this time 

 Professor Henry was made Secretary of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution. He determined to make American meteorology one of 

 the leading subjects of investigation to be aided by the Insti- 

 tution. At Professor Henry's request Professor Loomis pre- 

 pared a report upon the meteorology of the United States, in 

 which he showed what advantages society might expect from 

 the study of the phenomena of storms ; what had been done in 

 this country toward making the necessary observations, and 

 toward deducing from them general laws ; and h'nally, what 

 encouragement there was to a further prosecution of the same 

 researches. He then presented in detail a practicable plan for 

 securing the hoped-for advantages in their fullest extent. 



This plan looked to a unifying of all the work done by 

 existing observers, a systematic supervision, a supplementing 



