The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-08-06
Our Weather Bureau.

we publish In announcer part OF To-Day
paper an interesting article compiled from
documents just published by the Meteoro-
logical Bureau at Washington, on the general
laws of storms and atmospheric changes,
which will amply repay the thoughtful atten-
ton of the reader in search Of knowledge on
this important subject.
It has only been year since this branch OF
the public service was organized, but it seems
to have already the life and development Of
an old institution. Its initial movements have
been modest and wisely slow, and its daily
bulletins may not have yet attracted the eye
of the great mass Of readers. To borrow the
lines p ny
At first it seemed little speck,
And then 1t seemed mlst
It moved and moved, and took at last
certain shape, visit
And yet, small as this meteorological enter
prise now appears to be in America, it is
part Of that grand system of scientific obser-
walton now being prosecuted all over the
civilized world. Like political and social re-
volutions, the revolutions in the scientific
world never 60 backward-their shadows
never retreat on the sun dial. The steady
march and eysr:x!as9ies triumph 9Th. Of the
Baconian philosophy (Which led man to search
and investigate Nature, rather than to theorize
and speculate about her) are not more certain
and assured than the continued advances Of
weather telegraphy through the world.
The smallest beginnings of true science are
imperishable. When Lord Bacon let fall the
remark that ''the winds usually follow the
suu"-i. g., ,veer in the same direction round
the compass card with the suns apparent
diurnal course in the heavens (from east by
south, west and north in our hemisphere, and
revcrsely in the southern)-he little dreamed
that he was laying the foundati on for
demonstrating the great law of atmospheric
gyra.ion, now known to us through the
labors of Ferret and Dove. Still less
could the old philosopher have conceived
that the knowledge of this law of storms would
have become so practically utilized that YES
sells are every day rescued from destruction
by its timely application, and even when ably
managed the vessel, with sagaciOus seaman
over her, may follow cyclone at respectful
distance, making use Of its wind and training
the very furies of the tempest to act in his
service. Little also, in all probability, did
Buys Ballot, of Utrecht, suppose, when he dis
covered and proved by means OF the daily
weather bulletins of Holland, that li2e drawn
in the direction of the wind and another from
the place Of observation to that Of least
barometric pressure usually make an angle of
sixty degrees, that he had announced law Of
the wind, holding true almost everywhere, by
which, barometrical readings being given, we
know what winds or gales will blow ct any
epoch, and upon which law also the great
equatorial and polar currents Of the atmo-
sphere are as dependent as the aiT in an ordi-
nary storm. The accuracy and almost clock
like precision by which our own daily weather
kilograms and storm probabilities" are
marked give abundant evidence that our
at Washington are not to be
outstripped by those abroad, and that silently,
but surely, they win work out the great prob
IONS of American storms. The weather, itful
a. it may appear to be-" Variuns ct mutabi1e
scmper"-is, after all, only complex part
Of natures machinery, the working Of
30 much Of which has already been
laid bare by science. Even those wheels
which revolve most slowly and indiscernibly
are now so closely watched that their revolu-
ton and the periodical return Of certain phe-
nomena are foreknown. Sir John Herschel,
in one Of his latest works, strikingly alludes to
such periodical phenomenon in ''the NOvem-
Der atmospheric wave" which, it is now found,
sweeps every year over Great Britain and
Western Europe, probably originating in the
opposite, hemisphere and Of which the gale
of the Inflated Royal Charter October 25,
1850, the great Crimean hurricane CNovem-
Der a. 1860, and the still more awful British
storm of December 8, 1703, chroncled by the
which has ever swept England, may be con-
sidered as shadowing the beginning, middle
and end Even the periodicity Of the dark
spots on the sun has been determined by the
most laborious and protractsd observations to
be once in eleven years
1t was specifically said by Dr.. Johnson
that, when the philosophers of the seven
teenth century congregased into the Royal
Society of London, the time was supposed TO
be near when 'learning should be facilitated
by a common character and commerce ex-
tended by ships which could reach port in
defiance of the tempest" What wonder if il
should all come to pass. There is much more
in heaven and earth than was dreamed of In
the Doctors philosophy.
SANHEDRIM. publish in our issue this
morning, on the eleventh page, a full report