Autobiography - Publications Societies of Which He Was Member

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In December 1869 I sent to the Hon Halbert E. Paine, member of Congress from Milwaukee a memorial representing the duty & necessity of some effort to prevent the loss of life & property on the Great Lakes; the possibility of predicting the occurrence of great storms; show it could be done. The memorial was accompanied by a long list of disasters that had occurred by a long list of disasters that had occurred upon the lakes in that year, and was the means of securing the adoption of measures for weather predicitions which have grown to be of so muc importance, not only to the commerce of the lakes and the ocean, but in many other ways.
I spent most of the winter of 1870-71 in Chicago assisting in the organization of the original service, and in making up the results of observations upon which the first 'storm predictions' or 'probabilities' were based.
How much every sailor, ship owner, and others engaged in the commerce of our great lakes, every other person who daily looks at the weather probabilities as a guide for his action - are indebted to me for thus securing them the advantages - is for others to determine.