Year: 1871

INSTRUMENTS ana the laws OF war.


Tho Weather Reports-Their Use to Farm.
| ers, &c.


| Important arrangements have recently been


made for extending the benefit of the daily


weather reports to farmers and agricultural


societies. The law instituting the Meteoro-


logical Bureau makes it imperative on the
| chief signal officer merely to furnish ''notice


of the approach and force of storms on the
Northern lakes and seacoast," and its intent


is limited for ''the benefit of commerce." just


as is the similar bureau, established in 1861 in
England, under the supervision of Admiral


Fitzroy. Indeed, all institutions established
| for the purpose Of gaining weather intelligence


in Europe were designed to give timely pre-
| monitions and forecasts Of impending or ap-


preaching gales likely to affect the shipping or


seagOing community.


| Like everything else, however, that is of a
| truly scientific origin and proceeds upon accu-
rate observations Of nature in the lofty spirit
of the Baconian philosophy of induction, the
enterprise of which we speak has its manifold
benefits and blessings. While, directly, the
Weather Bureau is operated in the interest of
the imperilled mariner, it is in future, as far
as its means justify, to cooperate with agri-
cultural and horticultural societies, many of
which have already solicited such co-opera-
tion from General Myer and have expressed
their high appreciation of the naked informa-
ton which the Signal Office, through the
tuyico do do hrCo Ioo
the whole country.


The agency of man in altering the physical
conditions of any part of the globe on which
he sojourns has never till now been at all un-
derstood. Few would suppose that the valley
Of the Nile, through immemorial ages of the
past doomed to eternal drought and sterility
but for the swelings of its noble river, should
by human agency be made to arrest the pass
ing cloud and rob it of its moisture and fatness.
Little did the pioneers of the far. West dream
that the telling of their forests and the drainage
of their swampy prairies would, in time so
seriously reduce their mean annual rainfall
that in some regions, at this season, they
must drive their cattle hundreds of miles to
water and tarry at the water course till the
equinoctial rains. Steadily, however, the
climatic character of vast sections of the Con-
tinent is undergoing a most serious change
At some future time we shall call attention to
these grave changes, which will, by their silent
and unnoticed but yet potential agencies, revo-
lutionize the labor and industries of some of
our States, and even, perhaps, alter the social
complexion of entire portions of the country.
But it is enough at present. in this connection,
to point out the splendid field of usefulness
which lies before our Meteorological Bureau
in the Investigation of these climatic phenom-
ena, upon which every intelligent man, but
especially the intelligent farmer, must anx-
iously fasten his attention


1t often happens that the indirect advan-
tages which follow upon human achievements
and labors exceed those that are immediate
and direct. The English mechanic who first
applied steam to pumping water from the coal
mine might not have thought that his applica-
ton would subserve the more magnificent and
gigantic purpose of driving the monster steam
ship through the ocean. The poor French
prisoner who, in 1892, first contrived tele-
graphic code for conversing with those outside
bis prison wall probably did not conjecture
that upon the discovery of the laws
of electricity his device would become
Of worldwide and all-embracng impor-
tance. If the Signal Office had no other
mission to fulfil, and should its valuable
and almost invariably correct forecast cease,
the sphere OF usefulness left it in learning and
publishing the great climatic peculiarites of
our vast country for the benefit of agriculture
would alone far more than pay for double its
cost and labor.


The Chief Signal Officer has shown himself
glad to welcome the applications of all agri-
cultural societies for his cooperation in fur
nishing both timely storm warnings and in
amassing the largest possible fund of exact
weather statistics. Let his c forts be sec
onded and sustained throughout the country


The MATE OF THE SHIP THOMAS DUNHAM,
during melee on board yesterday, shot and
killed Hugh Conway, one of the crew just
ahinpad q 1iffla holn A.