CHAPTER XLIV.

“OLD PROBABILITIES’” WORKSHOP—HOW WEATHER CALCULATIONS ARE MADE.

“Old Probabilities”—An Interesting Subject—The Weather Bureau—The Experience of Fifty Centuries—Value of Scientific Knowledge—Meteorological Observations—Brigadier-General Albert J. Meyer—His Life and Career—He Introduces System and Order—Foreseeing the Approach of Storms—The Fate of the _Metis_—Quicker than the Storm—The First Warning by Telegraph—Exchanging Reports with Canada—The “Observing Stations”—Protecting the River Commerce—The Signal Corps—The Examinations—The Sergeant’s Duties—The Signal-Stations—The Work of the Observers—Preparing Bulletins at Washington—Professor Maury’s Account—Safeguards Against Mistakes—Deducing Probabilities—Despatching Bulletins—Preparing Meteorological Maps—Recording Observations—Watching the Storm—The Storm at San Francisco—Prophetic Preparations—Perfect Arrangements—Training the Sergeants—General Meyer’s Work—“Away up G Street”—The Home of Old and Young “Probabilities”—An Extraordinary Mansion—The “Kites and Windmills”—Inside the Mansion—The Apparatus—“The Unerring Weather-Man”—“Old Probabilities” Himself—How Calculations are Made—“Young Probabilities”—Interesting Facts.

There is no theme, not excepting marriage, birth, and death, that is more absorbing than “the weather.” It has made and unmade kingdoms, it has brought triumph in battle, and terrible defeat, it has brought woe and death; but that was before the day of “Old Probabilities,” or the Weather Bureau.

It is your own fault now, if your wedding-day is wet and gloomy, or if the rain pours into the open grave of the best-beloved. If you follow the weather report, you will know days before what the weather, in all probability, will be, and the report seldom fails. Even ten years ago, who would have thought that he could so soon find in the newspaper the almost unfailing prophecy of the skies of the coming day! Think of the millions of anxious faces which have turned sky-ward since the earth began! What eager and ignorant eyes have peered upward, to descry the portents of the unseen, yet brooding storm. Ignorance has already given place to knowledge, to a scientific forecasting of the elements, to a forestatement of the conditions of earth and air.

This wonderful fact, in its influence, penetrates not only to the finest fibre of social happiness, but influences all the civilizations of the earth. Although the changes of the atmosphere have seemed the most apparent of all the workings of nature, and have been more closely watched, and more constantly commented on by mankind, than all others taken together, after the lapse of fifty centuries, the desultory observer is unable to predict certainly the weather of a single day.

The value of accurate scientific knowledge on a subject which affects vitally the agricultural and commercial interests of the world, as well as the physical health and spiritual happiness of mankind, cannot be overestimated.

By a joint resolution of Congress, approved February 9, 1870, the Secretary-of-War was authorized and required to provide for taking meteorological observations at the military stations in the interior of the continent, and at other points in the States and Territories of the United States, and for giving notice on the northern lakes, and on the sea-coast, by magnetic telegraph and marine signals, of the approach and force of storms.

This special service was intrusted to the immediate supervision and control of General Albert J. Meyer. The following record of his services, in the United States Army, can but slightly indicate his peculiar fitness for the position which he now holds.

Brevet Brigadier-General Albert J. Meyer, Colonel and Chief Signal Officer, United States Army, was born in New York, and appointed Assistant-Surgeon, United States Army, from that State, September, 1854. He served on the Texas frontier, in the Rio Grande Valley, and at Fort Davis, Texas, to 1857; on special duty, signal service, 1858 to 1860. He was appointed Major and Chief Signal Officer, United States Army, July, 1860. In the Department of New Mexico to May, 1861; on staff of General Butler, Fort Monroe, Va., June, 1861; organized and commanded Signal Camp, Fort Monroe, Va.; _Aide-de-Camp_ to General McDowell at first battle of Bull Run, Va.; Chief Signal Officer on staff of General McClellan, and commanded Signal Corps, Army of the Potomac, to October, 1862; charge of Signal Office, Washington, D. C., to November, 1863.

He was appointed Colonel and Chief Signal Officer, United States Army, March, 1863; member of Central Board of Examination for admission to Signal Corps from April, 1863; on _reconnoissance_ of the Mississippi River, between Cairo, Ill., and Memphis, Tenn., December, 1863, to May, 1864; Chief Signal Officer, Military Division of West Mississippi, May, 1864; Colonel and Chief Signal Officer, United States Army, July, 1866. He was brevetted Lieutenant-Colonel, United States Army, for gallant and meritorious services at the battle of Hanover Courthouse, Va.; Colonel, United States Army, for gallant and meritorious services at the battle of Malvern Hill, Va.; and Brigadier General, United States Army, for distinguished services in organizing, instructing, and commanding Signal Corps of the army, and for its especial service at Allatoona, Ga., October 5, 1864.

General Meyer graduated at Geneva College, New York, 1847, A. B. and A. M., and took the degree of M. D., at the University of Buffalo, in 1851. He is the author of a manual of signals for the United States Army and Navy.

Upon his appointment as Chief of the Signal Service, of the United States Army, General Meyer at once inaugurated a systematic plan; he established stations at all points, decided by competent authorities to be important and practicable. These he provided with plain, efficient instruments, and keen, trained observers, whose duty it was to report three times daily, at intervals of eight hours. These reports, made in abbreviated cypher, were conveyed by telegraph. With the delivery of the reports at Washington, and at other important posts to which they were sent, began the practical workings of the “Weather Bureau” in the Signal Service of the United States. January 15, 1871, the stations on the Atlantic Coast, with others, were added to the list reporting.

One of the most important practical functions of the Bureau, is that of giving warning of approaching storms to vessels at the ports on the lakes. The unfortunate _Metis_ received such a warning before it started on its last disastrous voyage. It gave no heed, and in consequence went to wreck, and scattered its victims thick as snow-flakes on the engulfing waters of the Sound. The velocity of a storm being accurately observed at any one of the stations, it was easy to predict with accuracy the time of its arrival at any given point lying in its path; while the lightning wing of the telegraph bore this knowledge instantaneously to the threatened point.

The first telegraphic warning given thus was sent and bulletined at the several ports along the lakes, November 8, 1870.

The system was soon carried still nearer perfection by the adoption of cautionary signals. The first of these was displayed at Oswego, N. Y., October 26, 1871. Near this time, without any cost to the United States, the Bureau obtained a considerable extension to its area of observation.

In time the Canadian Government made a considerable appropriation to establish a similar system in the Dominion. Professor Kingston, chief of the Meteorological Bureau of Canada, requested of General Meyer an exchange of reports. Arrangements for such an exchange were duly made, and the first reports from Toronto were forwarded to the United States, November 13, 1871. Reports were also exchanged with the director of the Observatory at Montreal. The Canadian reports are made synchronously with those of the United States and in the same cypher. The stations of the Dominion are van-posts to the United States, giving warning of storms moving downward from the north.

By the Act of Congress, approved June 10, 1872, it was made the duty of the Secretary-of-War to provide such stations, signals and reports as might be found necessary for the benefit of the commercial and agricultural interests throughout the country. In response to an invitation made by the Chief Signal Officer, eighty-nine agricultural societies and thirty-eight boards of trade and chambers of commerce have appointed meteorological committees to coöperate and correspond with the Signal Bureau. The observing stations now number eighty-five. New stations are constantly being added. The station at Mount Washington is six thousand two hundred and ninety feet above the level of the sea. Other mountain-stations are to be established for the purpose of making observations upon the varying meteorological phenomena of different altitudes. These observations are sometimes made in a balloon.

To obtain reports of observations at sea, to some extent, the coöperation of ship-captains and of officers at the head of exploring expeditions has been obtained. A constant interchange of correspondence is also maintained with foreign meteorological societies. Five hundred tri-daily reports are constantly sent abroad. The same exchange with foreign governments will be arranged as soon as possible.

Besides weather-reports, a system of observation on the changes in the depth of waters in the principal Western rivers is already established. Great pains are taken with the reports on this subject, which are made to protect the river commerce from ice and freshets, and the lower river _levées_ from breakage and overflow. The observations on the weather embrace those on atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity of the air, force, direction and velocity of the wind, and the amount of rain-fall. For these purposes each station is carefully provided with appropriate instruments by the central office.

The Signal Corps is composed of a commanding officer with the rank of brigadier-general, several commissioned officers, and a certain number of sergeants and enlisted men. The sergeants are required to be proficient in spelling, the ground-rules of arithmetic, including decimal fractions, and the geography of the United States, and are required to write a legible hand. They are examined in these branches before being admitted into the service. They are also subjected to a medical examination, and only men of sound physical condition are accepted. They are regularly enlisted into the military service of the United States, and are subject to the regulations for the government of the army.

Immediately upon admission to the corps, each sergeant is sent to Fort Whipple, in Virginia, opposite Washington, where he is taught the duties of his profession, which are “chiefly those pertaining to the observation, record and proper publication and report, at such times as may be required, of the state of the barometer, thermometer, hygrometer, and rain-gauge, or other instruments, and the report by telegraph or signal, at such times as indicated, and to such places as may be designated by the chief signal officer, of the observations as made, or such other information as may be required.” The text-books used in the school at Fort Whipple, are Loomis’s “Text Book of Meteorology,” Buchan’s “Hand Book of Meteorology,” Pape’s “Practical Telegraphy,” and the “Manual of Signals for the United States Army.” Instruction in the use of the instruments is also given, and the sergeant is taught to operate the telegraph. He is required to make daily recitations, and when he is considered prepared, by his instructor, he is ordered before an examining board, and is subjected to a rigid examination. If he is found properly qualified, he is assigned to a signal station in some part of the country, and is allowed an enlisted man to assist him in his duties.

There are eighty-five signal stations, located in various parts of the Union, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from British America to the Gulf of Mexico. Each of these is supplied with a full set of the instruments necessary for ascertaining the condition of the weather, etc., and is in charge of an observer-sergeant, who is required to make observations three times a day, by means of his instruments, which are adjusted to a standard at Washington. These observations are made at 8 A. M., at 4 P. M., and at midnight. Each post of observation is furnished with a clock which is regulated by the standard of Washington time, so that the observations are taken precisely at the same moment all over the United States.

The result of each observation is immediately telegraphed to the Signal Office at Washington, the Government having made arrangements with the telegraph companies to secure the instant transmission of these messages. The reports are limited to a fixed number of words, and the time of their transmission to a fixed number of seconds.

The signal stations, as at present located throughout the country, have been chosen or located at points from which reports of observations will be most useful as indicating the general barometric pressure, or the approach and force of storms, and from which storm warnings, as the atmospheric indications arise, may be forwarded, with greatest dispatch, to imperilled ports.

The work of the observers at the stations is simple. It is limited to a reading of their instruments at stated times, the transmission to Washington of the results of these observations, and of information of any meteorological facts existing at the station, when their tri-daily report is telegraphed to Washington. The work of the officers on duty at the Signal Office in Washington, is of a higher character, and demands of them the highest skill and perfect accuracy. The reports from the various stations are read and recorded as they come in, and from them, the officer charged with this duty prepares a statement of the condition of the weather during the _past_ twenty-four hours, and indicates the changes most likely to occur within the _next_ twenty-four hours. These statements are prepared shortly after midnight, and are at once telegraphed to the various cities and important ports of the Union, in time for their publication in the newspapers the next morning.

Professor Maury, of the Signal Office, thus sums up the working of the service:

“Each observer at the station writes his report on manifold paper. One copy he preserves, another he gives to the telegraph-operator, who telegraphs the contents to Washington. The preserved copy is a voucher for the report actually sent by the observer; and, if the operator is careless, and makes a mistake, he cannot lay the blame on the observer, who has a copy of his report, which must be a _fac-simile_ of the one he has handed to the operator. The preserved copy is afterward forwarded by the Observer-Sergeant to the office in Washington, where it is filed, and finally bound up in a volume for future reference.

“When all the reports from the various stations have been received, they are tabulated and handed to the officer, (Professor Abbe,) whose duty it is to write out the synopsis and deduce the ‘probabilities,’ which in a few minutes are to be telegraphed to the press all over the country. This is a work of thirty minutes. The bulletin of ‘probabilities,’ which at present is all that is undertaken, is made out thrice daily, in the forenoon, afternoon, and after the midnight reports have been received, inspected, and studied out by the accomplished gentleman and able meteorologist, who is at the head of this work. The ‘probabilities’ for the weather for the ensuing day, so soon as written out by the Professor, are immediately telegraphed to all newspapers in the country who are willing to publish them for the benefit of their readers.”

Copies of the telegrams of “Probabilities” are also instantly sent to all boards of trade, chambers of commerce, merchants’ exchanges, scientific societies, etc., and to conspicuous places, especially sea-ports, all over the country.

While the professor is preparing his bulletins from the reports just furnished him by telegraph, the sergeants are preparing maps which shall show, by arrows and numbers, exactly what was the meteorologic condition of the whole country when the last reports were sent in. These maps are printed in quantities, and give all the signal stations. A dozen copies are laid on the table with sheets of carbon paper between them, and arrow-stamps strike in them (by the manifold process) the direction of the window at each station. The other observations as to temperature, barometric pressure, etc., etc., are also in the same way put on them. These maps are displayed at various conspicuous points in Washington, _e. g._, at the War Department, Capitol, Observatory, Smithsonian Institute, and the office of the chief signal-officer. They serve also as perfect records of the weather for the day and hour indicated on them, and are bound up in a book for future use.

Every report and paper that reaches the Signal Office is carefully preserved on a file, so that, at the end of each year, the office possesses a complete history of the meteorology of every day in the year, or nearly 50,000 observations, besides the countless and continuous records from all of its self-registering instruments.

When momentous storms are moving, observers send extra telegrams, which are dispatched, received, acted upon, filed, etc., precisely as are the tri-daily reports. One invaluable feature of the system, as now organized by General Meyer, is that the phenomena of any particular storm are not studied some days or weeks after the occurrence, but while the occurrence is fresh in mind. To the study of every such storm, and of all the “probabilities” issued from the office, the chief signal-officer gives his personal and unremitting attention. As the observations are made at so many stations, and forwarded every eight hours, or oftener, by special telegram from all quarters of the country, the movements and behavior of every decided storm can be precisely noted; and the terrible meteor can be tracked and “raced down” in a few hours or minutes.

An instance of this occurred on the 22d of February, 1871, just after the great storm which had fallen upon San Francisco. While it was still revolving round that city, its probable arrival at Corinne, Utah, was telegraphed there, and also at Cheyenne. Thousands of miles from its roar, the officers at the Signal Office in Washington indicated its track, velocity, and force. In twenty-four hours, as they had fore-warned Cheyenne and Omaha, it reached those cities. Chicago was warned twenty-four hours before it came. It arrived there with great violence, unroofing houses and causing much destruction. Its course was telegraphed to Cleveland and Buffalo, both of which places, a day after, it duly visited. The President of the Pacific Railroad has not more perfectly under his eye and control the train that left San Francisco, to-day, than General Meyer had the storm just described.

While the observers now in the field are perfecting themselves in their work, the chief signal-officer is training other sergeants at the camp of instruction (Fort Whipple, Virginia), who will go forth hereafter as valued auxiliaries. It has been fully demonstrated by the signal-officer that the army of the United States is the best medium through which to conduct most efficiently and economically the operations of the Storm Signal-Service. Through the army organization the vast system of telegraphy for meteorological purposes can be, and is now being most successfully handled. “Whatever else General Meyer has not done,” says the New York _World_, “he has demonstrated that there can be, and now is, a perfect net-work of telegraphic communication extending over the whole country, working in perfect order, by the signal-men, and capable of furnishing almost instantaneous messages from every point to the central office at Washington.”

Away up on G street we see the scientific home of both old and young “Probabilities.” We see it from afar, for its high Mansard seems to be stuck full of boys’ kites and wind-mills, playing and flying with the winds. It looks like a gigantic play-house. Any mortal, scientific or otherwise, would pause before this ancient house with an infantile roof, and wonder what child of larger growth amused himself playing with all the vanes and anemometers on its roof. It is painted a pearly drab. Fresh and fair, it has the effect of a youthful wig on an old man’s head, or a girl’s spring hat perched upon the head of a wintry old lady. Inside, the house looks less like a Skimpole in brick, and really takes on a cheerfully serious air.

On the first floor, we find two large offices, and a cozy little library, which stows away one thousand books, or more, on Meteorology, and its kindred themes. In its eastern hall, hang three great weather-maps, on which the state and changes of the weather at all the stations, for the past twenty-four hours, are indicated by established symbols. The second and third stories are occupied by the telegraphic corps. To this the station-work proper is assigned. In one room is the telegraphic apparatus, connecting with the many lines over which weather-reports are received from all over the country. After translation from the cypher into every-day speech, the reports are combined, and the weather-bulletin prepared. On this floor, also, the weekly mail-reports, from the widely-scattered stations, are received, examined, corrected, and filed for future use. Here, tucked away in a little room, we find “Acting Probabilities”—Professor Abbe, the unerring “weather-man,” who makes ready the synopsis each day prepared for the Associate Press Agents, Postmasters, etc.

We are sure, also, somewhere, to come in contact with “Old Probabilities” himself, supervising all. Like Professor Abbe, strange to say, he is a young man. General Meyer looks soldierly, and trig. He has fair face and hair, closely-cut whiskers, a rather small head, and a pair of inquiring, wise-looking eyes. The entire top floor is devoted to “local observations, and the gentlemen who play with the wind-mills and high-flying kites, upon the roof.” Among the instruments used here, are Hough’s barograph, a self-registering tide gauge; Addie’s London barometer, which is acknowledged as the standard barometer; Gibbon’s electric self-recording anemometer and anemoscope, the inventions of Lieutenant Gibbon, of the Signal-Service. The working force of the office is divided into three reliefs, each of which is on duty eight hours out of the twenty-four.

Any night, one sitting by this window, at a late hour, may see a slender youth shooting past toward the Signal-Service Bureau. This is “Young Probabilities,” and he is dressed in white. He is going to forecast the midnight portents for the next day.

The positive advantage of the midnight probabilities is that they relate to the weather of the coming day, and appear at the breakfast table to tell Dick and Dolly what, and what _not_ to do. The number of weather-maps issued daily from the central office is 600; from St. Louis 200; from New York 200; from Philadelphia, Chicago and Cincinnati 100 each, making a daily issue of 1,300. All of these are lithographed and printed at the central office.

“During the year 1872, 16,064 weather bulletins and 107,888 maps were issued from the office, and 2,920 reports furnished to the press. The work of the office has been recently extended by the publication of the probabilities based upon the midnight reports, which are widely distributed through the joint agency of the Signal Bureau and the Post-Office Department. Four hundred copies are issued from the Washington office, 1,000 from New York, 1,500 from Cincinnati, 800 from Detroit, 1,500 from Chicago, and 1,000 from St. Louis, and it is expected that the number will be still further increased during the year. The printed copies are sent by mail to each post-office within a radius of one hundred miles of the several points of distribution, to which the matter is telegraphed from the central office.”

“The practical value of the observations on our western rivers is strikingly illustrated by the report of the observer at Memphis, Tenn., who states that captains and pilots of boats generally decide by the reports of the Signal Bureau, on the board on the _levée_ at that port, whether the depth of the water above is sufficient to permit them to ascend the upper Mississippi or the Ohio. Before these reports were published, boats arriving during the night lost from six to ten hours in waiting for the telegraphic reports in the morning papers.

“A curious illustration of the legal value of the reports is furnished by the observer at Shreveport, La., who was summoned as a witness in a murder case, as to the condition of the river and the direction of the wind at the time of the supposed murder. These circumstances formed an essential part of the proof in the case.

“Perhaps few people would have supposed that the reports of the Bureau could have any relation to the practice of medicine, yet it is said to be a fact that many intelligent physicians avail themselves of the records of the stations in recommending to their patient an equable and agreeable climate. An observer at Indianapolis reports that several are accustomed to note the readings of the barometer every morning and evening, and one of them assured him that he modified his prescriptions according to barometric changes, believing that such changes have a direct effect upon the condition of his patients.

“Among the most important of the advantages connected with operations of the Weather Bureau are those arising from the continuous registering of atmospheric conditions, which will enable the scientific inquirer to determine, from the records of the office, the degree of temperature, barometric pressure, moisture of the air, the amount of rainfalls, the direction of the wind at various points for long periods of time. Having these data for various sections, agriculturists, microscopists, and mycologists will be enabled to determine in advance the probabilities as to the prevalence of particular classes of fungi in any district, and thus to indicate the adaptation of such districts for the cultivation of the grains, vegetables, or fruits which are liable to be affected by fungoid diseases.

“The signal service is not without its humorous side, an instance of which is furnished by the observer at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory. The establishment of the station at that point, early last spring, chanced to be followed by a long-continued period of unusually wet and stormy weather. This the Indians attributed to the observer, whom some person of waggish propensities had represented to them as the man that regulated the weather. After bearing their supposed persecution with exemplary fortitude for some weeks, their patience finally gave way, and they held an indignation meeting, at which it was seriously proposed to tear down the station. It was ultimately determined, however, to consult their agent; and upon his representing to them the true state of affairs, they reconciled themselves to the ‘weather-witch,’ and wisely resolved to wait peacefully for better times.”