70 
Remarks on the Recent Conference at Vienna on 
flourish of trumpets shortly before his death. This plan was 
devised to utilise local weather knowledge as much as possible. 
Public barometers were freely supplied to Communes, and daily 
summaries of the weather over Western Europe were sent gratis 
by telegraph. The authorities of the Commune were then 
required to appoint some official to prepare a forecast daily for 
the district by the use of the Paris telegram in addition to his 
own observations of local weather signs. 
Such a system as this, only infinitely more completely de- 
veloped, is in existence in the United States, where the weather 
service is a purely military organisation, and the amount of 
funds supplied by Congress is amply sufficient to defray the 
cost of its various developments, being on an immensely more 
liberal scale than has been dreamt of in any European country. 
Under this system, not only are competent officers placed at the 
different centres, and charged with the duty of publishing and 
issuing simultaneously the daily charts and forecasts of the 
service ; but a frame, called the " Weather Case or Farmer's 
Weather Indicator " has been supplied for the last two years to 
a large number of stations. This contains a barometer and 
two thermometers — dry and wet — which are set every day at a 
regular hour. In addition, the frame not only shows what are 
the average values for pressure and temperature, &c., for the 
station for the month, and exhibits the latest telegrams received 
from Washington, but what is most remarkable in the way of 
utilising local signs of weather, it provides a disc to show what 
has been the character of the previous sunset. 
A moment's reflection will show that it would be well-nigh 
impossible to introduce any such system in this country, from 
the lack of competent officials to manage the frames at the out 
stations. 
As far as I can gather, the experience of the foreign meteoro 
logists is similar to our own, that a practised judge of loca 
weather signs, such as the appearance of clouds, &c., when 
kept informed of the general conditions recently prevailing 
about him, as he may be by consulting the daily weather reports 
or even the remarks in the daily press, can form for his own 
district a more useful estimate of weather than any which can 
be prepared by any Central Office. 
The fact is that farmers expect meteorologists to be far mor 
precise in their predictions than is at all possible. At a recent 
Agricultural Conference held in Germany, it was stated that 
forecasts ought to convey correct estimates of the amount of rai 
likely to fall on the days to which they refer ; nay, more, that 
they should indicate which farms would be struck by hail. If 
meteorologists were only able to give such intimations as those 
