San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1895-08-30
WEATHER SERVICE.
That Of Chicago Includes a New
Searchlight Signal.
Some Interesting Information Regarding
This Unique Addition to the Signal
Apparatus-A Curious yul-
gar Belief.

The gardeners within a radius of
twenty miles of Chicago, when they
saw beam of white light sweep
slowly across the sky, some of those
chilly nights in the last week of May,
knew that it was warning of frost,
and with blankets and straw mats
made haste to cover their tender plants,
and so save their early crops. Out on
the lake, and in the harbor where yes
sells deeply laden with grain were
ready to go down to the straits, when
the pilots saw a streak of red-and-
white light shoot across the sky from
the direction of the big city, they knew
that it was not display of aurora
borealis, but warning of a marine
storm with high westerly winds. And
if the beam was solid red, it was quickly
interpreted as presaging storm with
high easterly winds. And, remember
ing the big storm of last May, writes
John T. Bramhall in Leslie's Weekly,
the boats kept the harbor in safety until
the storm went by. These lights came
from the government signal station,
high up on the tower of the Auditorium,
from the level top of which the electric
protector can throw light twenty or
thirty miles over the horizon in any
direction.
The use of the searchlight for this
purpose is entirely new, and is the re-
suit of the progressive policy of the
secretary of agriculture, Hon. j. Ster-
ling Morton, who has brought the
weather bureau to state of efficiency
and usefulness never before attained,
and who has been ably seconded in his
efforts by Prof. w. L. Moore, who won
the post of chief observer of the district
of the northwest by his success in q
severe Competitive examination, in
which problems in weather forecasting
formed the chief part. Prof. Moore
was trained by Maj. II. H. c. Dun
woody, the assistant chief of the
weather bureau, who is rated by scien-
tific men as the foremost practical
meteorologist in the world. Prof.
Moore's recent promotion to the posi-
ton of chief of the weather bureau
service is only just recognition of his
high capacity and eminently useful
career. The searchlight used for the
Chicago weather signal is a thirty
inch protector which was made by
the General Electric company for
the cruiser Maine. When needed on
the ship it will be replaced by forty
eight inch Of not one still larger re-
Hector, similar to those powerful
lights which threw their beams from
the great roof of the Manufactures
building at the worlds fair down upon
the Wooded Island and the Court of
Honor, and illumined the heavens
for miles around. The apparatus
at present used is rated at twenty
thousand candle-power, and the light
sent forth is increased by the reflector
to about one hundred thousand CANDLE
power. The carbon used is an inch in
diameter, and the current is taken from
the house mains at a potential OF one
hundred and seventeen volts and re-
duced to forty-seven volts by rheo-
stats. The present protector is directed
by hand, but the larger one will be OPP
Grated by keyboard in the tower. The
beam of white light from the big appa-
ratus, it is calculated, may be thrown,
in clear weather, over a circle having
radius of forty miles or more.
The Chicago weather Office is the
headquarters of the service for the
upper lake region, extending from
Indiana on the east and Indian terri
tory on the south to the international
boundary on the north and the crest
of the Rocky mountains on the west
a region that floats a commerce as heavy
as the Atlantic seaboard, and includes
the great cereal-growing states of the
country.
1t is curious to note how far the pop
ular fiction of the actual control of the
weather by the official observer has
grown into a vulgar belief. In times
when change of weather, for hot or
cold, wet or dry, is anxiously looked
for. it is not uncommon for rough-vis-
aged, gray-whiskeredm men to invade the
sky parlor of the weather man" and
earnestly beg or vehemently demand
the desired alteration in meteorologic
conditions. Others, of the class known
as "cranks," come to divulge their pc
culiar systems" and to plead for an ex-
change of condolences, that they may
be the better enabled to deal out rain
or shine to the satisfaction of their
patrons. Such people are briefly re-
ferred IN the weather chart and the
various indicators, and are obliged,
many of them being unable to read
even barometer, to make the best OF
such means of information.