I860.] 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



465 



tor the Southern Plan'er. 



Meteorological Inquiries Answered. 



Observatory, Washington, ) 

 29th June, 1860. j 



Gentlemen : 



Though your letters differ in their dates, 

 and are written from places widely apart, 

 they relate to the satiie subject, and reach 

 me about the same time. The answer to 

 one is answer to the other, and there- 

 fore I make but one reply. 



You tell me that the seasons appear to be 

 sadly out of joint in Texas; that every- 

 thing with you is burnt up for the want of 

 rain ; and that it is reported there I have 

 predicted that Western Texas will ulti- 

 mately, and that, too, at no distant day, be- 

 come a desert. 



You ask me for the grounds of this be- 

 lief, and if I ever said so. 



In the first place, I never said any sucb 

 thing ; and in the next place, no sane man 

 can say he has any ground whatever for 

 any such belief. Nor can I imagine how 

 such arrant nonsense as predictions about 

 the weather we are to have the next 

 month, or year, or generation, came to be 

 placed in my mouth. 



I teil you what I have said, though, 

 and what I say now : I say that if the ag- 

 riculturists would give me their counte- 

 nance, and Government its leave, in extend- 

 ing my meteorological investigations to the 

 land, I could render a service to the cause 

 of science, from which farming, and plant- 

 ing, and grazing would receive benefits as 

 signal as those which commerce and naviga- 

 tion have derived from our meteorological 

 labours at sea. 



You know that some six or eight years 

 ago, the principal maritime nations of Eu- 

 rope were invited to eo-operate with us in 

 a system of meteorological observations at 

 sea ; and that in a conference held at Brus- 

 sels for the purpose, a plan of observations 

 was agreed upon, and that ships now, both 

 men-of-war and merchant-men, are engaged 

 under all flags in carrying out this system. 

 It is upon the plan of voluntary co-opera- 

 tion. From it, discoveries most important 

 to science and valuable to navigation have 

 been made. I have asked to have the 

 plan extended to the shore, maintaining 

 that if it were, I could secure there the 

 volunteer co-operation in every county in 

 30 



every State, of at least one farmer, to ob- 

 serve and report upon the weather ; that 

 with such an organization, as much may be 

 done for agriculture and the industrial pur- 

 suits of the land, as Las been accomplish- 

 ed for those of the sea. 



By connecting with this plan a system of 

 daily telegraphic reports of wind and 

 weather, I belitve warning more or less am- 

 ple might be given of every storm that 

 comes where the telegraph gees. I have 

 stated this officially, and urged it publicly. 

 But jealousies and other miserable influ- 

 ences' of one sort or another have hitherto 

 stood in the way of its adoption. 



I think the magnetic telegraph is capa- 

 pable of being made the most powerful 

 meteorological implement of the age. In 

 proper lands, it can be made to give warn- 

 ing of every coming change in the 

 weather ; and it is a reproach to us as a 

 nation, who have a greater extent of tele- 

 graph than all the world beside, that it 

 should not be turned to account in this re- 

 spect. 



When I first appealed to ship-masters 

 and owners for their co-operation, in these 

 researches at sea, they turned as deaf an 

 ear as the farmers and planters have done 

 about extending these researches to the land. 

 But I got leave to go ahead, and make 

 the trial with such materials as I could lay 

 hands on, or find by ransacking garrets 

 and overhauling old sea-journals. 



A chart embodying the results was pub- 

 lished ; a ship-master was persuaded to 

 take it to sea with him, to go by it, and 

 give it a trial. He did so ; and to the as- 

 tonishment of everybody he went to Rio, 

 discharged cargo, took in another, and re- 

 turned home in little more than the time it 

 usually took to go. 



After that, there was no lack of co-ope- 

 ration ) and in a little while, without 

 money or patronage, and with nothing to 

 give for the service but a chart, I had a 

 fleet of more than a thousand sail engaged 

 night and day, and on all parts of the 

 ocean, in making and recording the requi- 

 site observations. 



Do you ask, why do I not do the same 

 thing for the agriculturists? Simply be- 

 cause I can't get the leave. The law al- 

 lows me to discuss the observations that 

 [are made on board ship at sea, but I am 



