The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1888-08-30
Apostolic SIGNAL SERVICE.

was 6 $4,000 tons, worth $9,S47,15O.
A POSSIBLE SIGNAL SERVICE
Methods Suggested by Which 1t
Gould be Improved.
From the Boston Advertiser.
The frequent and sometimes absurd
failures in the recent attempts of the
signal service bureau to foretell the weather
from day to day have been the means of
calling the attention of meteorologists to
some radical effects in the existing ar.
rangements of the bureau, and it may be
fairly hoped that good to the service will
ensue, sufficient to compensate for tenn
porary lack of success. Professor Shaler
whose right to speak as an expert admits
of no question, has recently expressed the
opinion that much of the fault found with
General Greedy is misdirected, that the
blame properly rests, not upon the head
of the signal service bureau, but upon the
army methods which are employed in car
rying on the work. He thinks that the
strict discipline, the routine, the complete
subordination of each individual to his
superior's rank, which are essential to the
efficiency of an army, are fatal to the
success of a body of scientific investi-
gators. He does not insist that the task
of making weather predictions should be
taken from the military and intrusted to
the civil department of the government,
although it is plain that such transfer
would best meet the professors views; but
he does insist that, if the work is to be
done by soldiers, means must be found to
iustill into the minds of the men engaged
in this difficult labor, something of the
same sense of individual responsibility
and personal ambition which has happily
fish commission.
Within the past few years there has
sprung up in scientific circles new zeal
for meteorological investigation. OF all
departments of physical research this is
at once the most fascinating and the
least explored. When one thinks of it
there is something startling in the fact
that an eclipse or the temperance of
comet can be foretold with absolute GER
tainly 100 years in advance, but no living
man can say with confidence whether or
not it will rain tomorrow. Yet few in
telligent people doubt that the conditions
which bring rain exist and operate with
the same uniformity and precision as do
the conditions that bring an eclipse.
Within a very limited sphere these
conditions are already well known. A
bright boy or girl in the high school can
tell what degree of atmospheric humidity
united with what temperature will surely
and Immediately be followed by rain
drops. This truth has been established,
as all other scientific truth his been, by
observation and induction. The next
step is to find the relation between a
given condition of the suns rays on the
one hand and radiation and evaporation
on the other hand. There appears to be
no reason why the second step should be
more difficult to take than the first.
What is now proposed by enthusiasts in
meteorological investigation is that facts
bearing upon this subject be collected in
vastly more systematic and extensive
manner than has ever yet been done. Sew
eral suggestions to this end have been re-
Gently made. The foremost of these is
curiously connected with that Other. great
enigma of modern times, the geography
of the polar regions. Every day the stu
dents of winds and rains are becoming
more convinced that all such phenomena
have their secret sources locked In the sol
itudes of the frigid zones. The mainte-
nance of signal service stations beyond
the Arctic circle is cherished project
with Gevotees of the new meteorology.
Another plan is to have trained observers
constantly crossing the oceans, and, if pos
sible, to secure some means of telegraphic
communication between different points
on the high seas and observation stations
on the land. International cooperation
is considered of the utmost importance.
Many other expedients for obtaining
the data for wide generalization and mi
mute study of cause and effect have oc-
Cured to those who are giving themselves
to the investigation of such questions. 1t
is not expected that all that is asked will
be Immediately granted, either by public
or private munificence; but, unless the
human mind loses the thirst for knowledge
which it has possessed hitherto, the time
must come when the laws of the atmos-
phere will be written in the books of sci
ence, as the laws of the planets have long
been.