258 The National Geographic Magazine 



made for the region east of the Rocky 

 Mountains on the American continent, 

 because of the ocean that lies to the 

 west of these countries in Europe, from 

 which observations cannot be secured. 

 To be sure, wireless telegraphy may 

 partly relieve the situation, but irregu- 

 lar observations from moving vessels 

 cannot take the place of stable land 

 stations. 



At the time of the beginning of the 

 U. S. weather service, in 1870, and for 

 some years thereafter the forecasts and 

 storm warnings were looked upon by 

 the press and the people more as ex- 

 periments than as serious statements. 

 The newspapers were prone to comment 

 facetiously on them, and many were 

 clamorous for the abolition of the serv- 

 ice. We knew nearly as much about 

 the theory of storms then as we do to- 

 day; but we had never had the oppor- 

 tunity to train a corps of expert fore- 

 casters, such as now form a considera- 

 ble part of the staff of the Chief of the 

 Weather Bureau, and from which he 

 himself was graduated. This could 

 only be done by several years of daily 

 watching the inception, the develop- 

 ment, and the progression of storms. 

 After a time mariners began to note 

 that in the great majority of cases storm 

 warnings were followed by dangerous 

 winds and to take heed accordingly. 

 With experience the warnings became 

 still more accurate, until now no port, 

 however small, is without its storm- 

 warning tower, and no mariner sails 

 the seas who does not consult the sig- 

 nals, and no shipper of perishable com- 

 modities runs his business a day in the 

 winter without being in touch with the 

 source of cold-wave warnings, and no 

 large grower of fruits or vegetables is 

 content to be excluded from the receipt 

 of the frost forecasts. 



Redfield, Espy, Henry, Eoomis, 

 Maury, Abbe, and Eapham are the 

 Americans to whom the world owes 

 most for the founding of meteorological 



science and for the demonstration of the 

 feasibility of weather forecasts. 



HOW THE DAILY WEATHER CHART 

 IS MADE 



It is essential to a comprehension of 

 the problems involved in the making of 

 forecasts that one gain a knowledge of 

 the methods of gathering meteorological 

 observations and making weather re- 

 ports. This morning at 8 o'clock — 

 75th meridian time— which, by the way, 

 is about 7 o'clock at Chicago, 6 o'clock 

 at Denver, and 5 o'clock at San Fran- 

 cisco — the observers at about 200 sta- 

 tions scattered throughout the United 

 States and the West Indies were taking 

 their observations, and, with the aid of 

 carefully tested instruments, noting the 

 pressure of the air, the temperature, the 

 humidity, the rainfall or snowfall, and 

 the cloudiness at the bottom of the 

 aerial ocean in which we live, and which, 

 by its variations of heat and cold, sun- 

 shine, clouds and tempest, affect not 

 only the health and happiness of man, 

 but his commercial and industrial wel- 

 fare. By 8.15 the observations have 

 been reduced to cipher for purposes of _ 

 brevity, and each has been filed at the 

 local telegraph office. During the next 

 30 to 40 minutes these observations, 

 with the right of way over all lines, are 

 speeding to their destinations, each sta- 

 tion contributing its own observations 

 and receiving in return, by an ingenious 

 system of telegraph circuits, such ob- 

 servations from other stations as it may 

 require. The observations from all 

 stations are received at such centers as 

 Washington, Chicago, New York, and 

 other large cities, and nearly all cities 

 having a Weather Bureau station re- 

 ceives a sufficient number of reports 

 from other cities to justify the issuing 

 of a daily weather map. 



Before examining the accompanying 

 charts it may be well to glance at the 

 central office in Washington, while the 

 observations are coming in, so as to get 



