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Government Telegrams and Reports
For The
Benefit of Commerce.

Popular attention is at this time directed to the formal undertaking, for the first time on this continent, under Government auspices, of an organized system of weather reports to be made by telegraph, with the purpose of giving information in advance of the approach and force of storms, for the benefit of commerce on the northern lakes and sea-board. The advantages to be gained, if success can be had, are so vast, and popular curiosity in reference to the subject is so general, that a brief statement of what has been undertaken in this regard in other countries, and of the steps which have led to the present action in our own, is thought worthy of publication.

The special characteristic of modern efforts, in the development of meteorological science, consists in co-operation among observers laboring in different fields, and thus securing the data for determining the simultaneous condition of the atmosphere over extended regions of country.

It is only by this means that the laws which govern the occurrence, motion, direction, and propagation of atmospheric disturbances can be ascertained. As soon as this truth was recognized and acted upon, the important fact was developed that storms moved in certain fixed directions, and at such rates of speed as permitted telegraphic notice of their approach to be given to places lying in their paths.