New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-09-07

like conduct presses forward TO take their
place.
We called attention few weeksagOto the good
service which this corps of men have rendered
TO the country, and to the slight notice ana
poor pay which they have received for IT,
Until lately, the service was not recognized as
Legitimate branch of the Army. The men,
privates and sergeants, who had studied ana
pr c ised its business for years as proies-
sion. were liable to be ordered off any day,
and set to other work. In spite OF all dlscour-
agements it persevered, until Its system Oh
meteorological surveys was pronounced by
foreign Governments the most complete In the
world. Then our own gave it late recogm-
ton.
II ia not to the scientific accuracy of its
observations, however, that we wish TO call
the attention of the public just now, but TO
the bravery OF its men. The yearly reports
of the service, among their dry statistics
contain histories of individual endurance and
suffering stranger than any tale OF hcHon'
One observer builds hut on the Alcuhan
Isles and makes his record for years,
seven times a day, among the miser-
able savages, the volcanic eruDtions and
the deadly fogs of that desOlate suburb OF
the world another builds his cabin on the top
most summit of Pixies Peak, and lives through
as much of the Winter there as he can Dear
climbing out on the dreary ice and sleet on
his roof at night TO heap rocks upon IL that
the hurricane may not blow it away while
in the churches below prayers are offered all
Winter that his life may be spared as for one
in constant deadly peril At last he gives up,
and is carried OIL dying, as it is supposed
while another OF these faithful men comes up
quietly to take his place. Still another makes
that most frightful journey which IS recorded
in the history of the world, when the crew OF
the Polaris floated for months in the darkness
and horror of the Arctic seas upon melting
foe of ice, and even then, half frozen and
starved, he managed to keep mp IN some sort
the observations which he had been sent out
to make.
We are generous in giving fame to brave
soldier do not let us refuse honor to these
good servants of the country because they
risk life to help humanity and not to destroy
it. Tenney and Cody, who have fallen at
their post from the plague at Vicksburg, and
the gallant private, Yandyke, who has hur-
red down to fill their place, deserve the more
honor because their work apparently has but
n remote bearing in checking the disease.
The physician, the Howard nurse, the clergy
man, who remain faithful to their work n
that dreadful valley of death, are at tie
bedsides of the sick and dying. They can
see and feel the good results of the tremen-
dous sacrifice they make. But the Signal Ser
vice officer gives his life to set down observa-
tons on rain and wind. Science, with the
material he accumulates, may stay the march
OF the pestilence hereafter; but he does not know
that. Nobody knows him, or the nurse who falls
at his post. The papers have ceased to name
them. in the haste of the wholesale slaughter
"What good, then, to the world did Priscus
"do who was but a single person and
"unknowni Why, what good doth the pur-
"ple to the garment To make it royal and
beautiful p