CHAPTER I.

Biology is the science of life, the true doctrine concerning all living things. Animal biology is that branch of the science which relates to animals, as distinguished from plants. It tells of these animals what we know about them, where and how they live, what food they eat, how it is received, and how they grow and multiply. Of all the sciences, this seems most extensive, having for its field a world of numberless forms, alike in that they all live, and have some characteristics in common, yet showing great diversity in their structure, appearance, and mode of life. In this summary of facts we shall simply classify, or methodically arrange in groups, according to their distinguishing peculiarities, the members of this vast family.

The animal kingdom is divided into the following sub-kingdoms, each of which is subdivided into classes. The following table shows these divisions in their proper order, beginning with the lowest:

SUB-KINGDOM I—_Protozoa_. { Class I—Monera. { Class II—Gregarinida. { Class III—Rhizopoda. { Class IV—Infusoria.

SUB-KINGDOM II—_Spongida_.

SUB-KINGDOM III—_Cœlenterata_. { Class I—Hydrozoa. { Class II—Anthozoa. { Class III—Ctenophora.

SUB-KINGDOM IV—_Echinodermata_. { Class I—Crinoidea. { Class II—Asteroidea. { Class III—Echinoidea. { Class IV—Holothuroidea.

SUB-KINGDOM V—_Vermes_. { Class I—Flat Worms. { Class II—Round or Thread Worms. { Class III—Rotifera. { Class IV—Polyzoa. { Class V—Brachiopoda. { Class VI—Annelidæ.

SUB-KINGDOM VI—_Mollusca_. { Class I—Lamellibranchiata. { Class II—Gasteropoda. { Class III—Cephalopoda.

SUB-KINGDOM VII—_Articulata_. { Class I—Crustacea. { Class II—Arachnida. { Class III—Myriapoda. { Class IV—Insecta.

SUB-KINGDOM VIII—_Tunicata_.

SUB-KINGDOM IX—_Vertebrata_. { Class I—Pisces. { Class II—Reptilia. { Class III—Aves. { Class IV—Mammalia.

SUB-KINGDOM I.

_Protozoa_ (first animals). These earliest formed animals are distinguished for the simplicity of their structure. In some cases their animal nature was long ago in doubt, and they were, for a time, put down as probably belonging to the vegetable kingdom. The border line between the two has never been very definitely located. Biologists may fail to tell just what special quality distinguishes the minute animal from the microscopic plant. This is not wonderful, when it is remembered that myriads of animals, known to be such, are so small that it requires a lens of strong magnifying power to discover them. Three thousand of them, placed side by side, would make a line but little over an inch long.

CLASS I.—_Monera_ (single). These are the simplest forms of microscopic aquatic animals. They are entirely homogeneous, and without any developed organs; mere particles, of a jelly-like, but living, or life-supporting substance, called protoplasm, or more properly, bioplasm. This, all admit, is the physical basis of life, and the medium of its manifestation, just as the conductor is a medium of manifestation of electricity. But is it not a stupid blunder to confound the mere medium of its manifestation with the life itself? In neither case is the recognized physical basis of the manifestation necessary to the existence of that manifested by its means. Electricity exists without the conductor, and life may exist without the bioplasm.

CLASS II.—_Gregarinida_ (living in herds). Minute animals which are found in the intestines of the lobster, clam, and cockroach. They are worm-like in form, and of a very simple, cell-like structure, the only organ being a nucleus.

CLASS III.—_Rhizopoda_ (root footed). The representative forms of this class are the _Amœba_[1] and _Foraminifera_. The amœba is an indefinite little bit of bioplasm, as structureless as the monera, only that it is made up of two layers of the substance, has an apparent nucleus, and a contractile cavity within. These first animals vindicate their right to be recognized as such, by moving, receiving food, growing, and reproducing their kind. They move by a contractile force, throwing out at will processes of their soft bodies, to serve them as feet and arms. True, these are blunt, and without digits, but they answer the purpose. They eat either by simple absorption, or by wrapping their soft bodies around the food, and holding it in the extemporized stomach till it is, in some way, assimilated.

The work of reproduction is carried on principally by self-division, and budding. The animal rends itself into two or more parts, each having all the elements of the whole, or it throws out buds that mature and drop from the parent mass, having the vital element, and a portion of the bioplasm, or medium necessary to its development.

The _Foraminifera_ (perforated animals), of this class, have several peculiarities. The body is even more simple, being apparently without layers or cavity. The processes thrown out as arms and legs are not blunt or massive, but long and slender. And, moreover, small as it is, it has the wonderful property of secreting about itself an envelope, whose thin walls are built of the carbonate of lime. The delicate little structures are often singularly beautiful. Some are monads, having but a single shell; others, by a process of budding add new cells or chambers, often in a spiral coil. These are marine shells, and their numbers in many parts of the ocean are astounding. The bottom of the sea, for many degrees on both sides of the equator, wherever examined by dredging, is found covered with them, either still in their organic state, or ground by attrition to a fine lime dust. It is estimated that a single pound of the sea bottom in some localities contains millions of them, and they are the principal material of the chalk hills.

CLASS IV.—_Infusoria._ This class includes _Vorticella_ (wheel animals), _Flagellata_ (whip-shaped animals), _Tentaculata_ (having tentacles), and others. Their general characteristics do not differ widely from those already mentioned. As the name imports, they are mostly found in vegetable infusions that have been exposed for some time, and are directly the product of invisible cells or animal germs that were floating in the atmosphere till a lodgment was found favorable to their development. Those called _Vorticella_, to the eye seem simply mould on the plant to which they are attached, but under the glass their animal qualities appear; and they multiply with amazing rapidity. Every drop of water from a stagnant pool is full of these animalculæ, of various shapes and dimensions, some of them constantly in motion, propelled by numerous cilia, or slender, hair-like appendages that fringe the circumference, and are used as oars. Their whole organism, though delicate, and having a thin membranous covering, is imperfect. There are two contractile openings, with a slight depression at the mouth, leading to a funnel-shaped throat, into which the nutritive substances descend.

SUB-KINGDOM II.

_Spongida_, or sponges, are especially worthy of mention. When much less was known of their nature and habits, they were classed with vegetables, but since their mode of reproduction has been discovered, they are known to be animals. The sponge is formed of an aggregation of ciliated cells, built together on a skeleton or framework of calcareous or silicious substance, that extends by slow external secretions as the animal body grows. There is a central cavity toward which there are numerous channels, from openings on the surface, through which water is continually received, and one through which it is discharged. The animal part is a sensitive, gelatinous film, extending through the growing mass, and spreads out over the surface. It is perforated, in places, and adapts itself to all the sinuosities and intersections of the canals that run in every direction. The little animals are provided with exceedingly fine cilia that they keep in almost constant motion; no one knows how, or for what, but it is supposed they thus sweep in the water that circulates through all the channels and chambers formed for it. After death, the soft matter, like all animal tissues, decays, or is dried up; and by beating and washing, it and any calcareous substances are removed. The horny, elastic fibers are found so exquisitely connected about the internal canals and cavities that water is freely admitted, or by pressure expelled. Sponges are found in every latitude, but are more numerous and grow larger in warm climates. Those in our markets are mostly from the Bahamas and the islands of the Mediterranean. They are obtained by diving, often to great depths.

SUB-KINGDOM III.

_Cœlenterata_ (hollow intestines). These are radiate animals, have a distinct digestive cavity, and always two layers of tissue in their walls. They have minute sacs containing a fluid, and barbed filaments capable of being thrown out as stings. The classes of the Cœlenterata are the _Hydrozoa_, _Anthozoa_, and _Ctenophora_. The best known representative of the former is the fresh water _hydra_ (water animal). It gives but slight evidence of a nervous system, has no stomach, or digestive sac, but is a simple tube into which the mouth opens. The sensitive little body is in color and texture, to the casual observer more like a plant than an animal. It is attached at one end to a submerged aquatic plant, while the mouth at the free end is provided with tentacles,[2] by which it feeds and moves. It buds, and also produces eggs. The young hydra, when hatched or thrown off, attaches itself to plants, as did its parents. Some hydroids attach themselves to shells, and are supported by horny, branching skeletons, specimens of which are numerous, and may be seen in almost any museum.

A second representative of this class is the jelly fish. It has a soft, gelatinous, circular body, that floats or swims on the surface in calm weather, with the mouth downward. Tubes radiate from the center to the circumference that is fringed all around with pendant tentacles, sometimes of great length and of considerable contractile power. They are of various sizes, some quite small, others as much as eight feet in diameter. They move about by flapping their sides, after the manner of opening and shutting an umbrella. When dried, the thin, filmy covering is very light. One variety, called _Lucernaria_, is found attached to grasses along the Atlantic shore. But the ordinary jelly fish is free, and borne on the surface of the sea.

The _Anthozoa_ (flower animals) are small, but not microscopic animals, having a double cavity, the inner of which is the digestive sac. The best known of the class is the _Actinia_ (rayed), or sea anemone, so called from its resemblance to a plant or flower of that name. The body is somewhat like a flower in shape. The disc has a central orifice, very contractile, and surrounded with tubular tentacles of various forms, which it elongates, contracts, and moves in different directions. They are so many arms by which the animal seizes its prey, and when expanded for the purpose, being tinted with brilliant colors, present an elegant appearance, and make vast fields of the ocean look like beautiful flower gardens. They feed voraciously on little crabs and mollusks, that often seem superior to themselves in strength and bulk, but they have power in their little tentacles to seize and hold their prey, and when they engulf large bodies the stomach is distended to receive them; and their digestion is good. The purple sea anemone is very common on the southern shores of England, and one species, found on the shores of the Mediterranean, is said to be esteemed a great delicacy by the Italians. At night, or when alarmed, the animal draws in its arms, shuts the door, and seems but a rounded lump of flesh, a huge oyster without a shell. The coral polyps (many footed), belonging to this class, are little folk, but of importance from their well-earned reputation as reef builders. They are very diminutive creatures, mere drops of animal jelly, often not larger than the head of a pin, but their works show unmistakable evidence of life, and an organic structure. They live in communities, closely united, but each, having a distinct individuality, by the sure process of secreting a portion of the calcareous matter within reach, prepares for himself a house, as all his ancestors have done, and his neighbors are now doing. They build together, their foundations having strong connections, and thoroughly cemented. There in his own little palace the polyp lives, his food being brought to his lips; and, having sent out a numerous progeny to do likewise for themselves, there he dies. Life and death, as in all mundane communities, being in close proximity, the old dying, a new generation builds houses over their sepulchres.

The great variety of corals seen in any extensive collection, some very beautiful, others rough and unsightly, are from different branches of a very extensive family. _Astrea_ (star shaped), from the Fiji islands, is a kind of coral hemisphere, covered with large and beautiful cells.

_Mushroom coral_ is disc shaped, not fixed or attached, and is the secretion, not of many, but of a single huge polyp.

_Brain coral_ is globular, and the surface irregularly furrowed or corrugated.

_Madrepora_ (spotted pores) _coral_ is neatly branched, the branches having pointed extremities ending in single minute cells.

_Porites_, or sponge coral, is also branched, but the branches are not pointed, and the surface smoother.

_Tubipora_, or organ pipe coral, shows some very striking peculiarities. A section of the vast structures built by them resembles a collection of regular, smooth, red colored pipes, firmly bound together by cross sections.

Coral rocks are of slow formation, but have attained prodigious dimensions; whole islands are of coral origin, and in some seas the concealed rocks make navigation dangerous. The reefs are often 2,000 feet thick, though it is estimated that not more than five feet are added in a thousand years. The little architects were at work early.

_Corallium rubrum_, or red coral, much sought after and precious, is shrub-like, of fine texture, and a beautiful crimson color. In a living state its branches are said to be covered over with bright polyps, and the skeleton receives a very fine polish. It is used for ornaments. Professor Dana says: “Some species grow in large leaves rolled round each other, like an open cabbage, and another foliated kind consists of leaves more crisped, and of more delicate structure. ‘Lettuce coral’ would be a significant name; each leaf has its surface covered with polyp flowers. The clustered leaves of acanthus and oak are at once called to mind by this species.”

_The Ctenophora_ (comb-bearing) are considered the highest of the Cœlenterata, having a more complex digestive apparatus, and better developed nervous system. Their long tentacles, and comb-like cilia are used for swimming.

SUB-KINGDOM IV.

_Echinodermata_ (spiny skinned) have all their parts symmetrically arranged about a central axis, a contractile heart, good digestive organs, and a peculiar system of radiating canals extending through the organism. They are a numerous family of exclusively marine animals, and their characteristics furnish an interesting study. Most naturalists mention four classes.

CLASS I.—_Crinoidea_, or sea lilies, now nearly extinct, are fixed to rocks, or the sea bottom, by what seems simply a stem, but is the body of the animal. At the top is the mouth, resembling an expanding bud or flower that opens upward, surrounded by long tentacles, or arms, not unlike the sea anemone. It is supported by a calcareous skeleton consisting of many members, stiff-jointed, crossing and interlacing with one another. When living, the gelatinous animal partly envelops this framework.

CLASS II.—_Asteroidea_, or star fish, have a flat disc, five or more radiating arms extending some distance from the body at the center, and containing a part of the viscera. The mouth is where the arms meet, and opens downward. The upper surface is studded over with rough knobs, between which are the openings of many little tubes, for the passage of water into and out of the body. The round mouth is very dilatable, enabling it to receive large and solid objects for its food, which there is no attempt to masticate. After the digestive organ is somehow wrapped around the shell fish on which it feeds, it is held in its firm embrace till the nutritive portion is disposed of, and then thrown out. They are voracious eaters, devouring all kinds of garbage that would otherwise accumulate along the shores, valuable as sea scavengers, though destructive of living crustaceans and shell fish.

CLASS III.—_Echinoidea_ (hedgehog-like) are covered with spines which they move either by the enveloping membrane or by small muscles properly situated for the purpose. The thin, horny, and, when dry, very light skin is peculiar, in that it is composed of regularly shaped, pentagonal plates, arranged in radiating zones, every alternate plate perforated with small holes; and among the spines, but capable of extending beyond them, are little arms, provided at the end with forceps, probably for seizing their prey, or for ridding themselves of troublesome parasites. These are also used for locomotion. They are less active than some others of the family, live near the shore among rocks, or under the seaweed, feed on crabs, and are oviparous.[3]

CLASS IV.—_Holothuroidea_ (whole mouthed). They are elongated, like a cucumber, and the head end terminates abruptly, the mouth being a circular opening surrounded with feathery tentacles. They have remarkable muscular power, by which they can disgorge the contents of the stomach, throw off their tentacles, and even eject most of their internal organs, and survive the loss, afterward producing others, perhaps more satisfactory or in a healthier condition. In tropical climates, they have been likened to the sea urchin, without a shell, but are proportionally longer, and their axis horizontal.

SUB-KINGDOM V.

_Vermes_ (worms). Animals having head and tail composed of segments. The digestive organ is tubular, and the nervous system a double chain of ganglia[4] on the ventral[5] surface. There are six classes of vermes. The animals differ greatly in appearance.

CLASS I.—_Flat worms_ are best known as the parasites that infest animals, such as the liver fluke of the sheep, and the tapeworm. The flat worms pass through a very peculiar metamorphosis, some varieties taking as many as seven different forms.

CLASS II.—_Round or Thread Worms_ are represented by the pin worm and _Trichina_. The latter is the dangerous worm which finds its way into the human system from pork flesh, in which it is imbedded.

CLASS III.—_Wheel Animalculæ_, or _Rotifera_. A most interesting microscopic worm, abounding in fresh water and in the ocean. They will remain dried up for years, and then recover life. Their shapes are very peculiar.

CLASS IV.—_Moss Animals_, or _Polyzoa_, are the animals which form a coral-like shell. They are abundant on the seashore, and are called sea mosses.

CLASS V.—_Lamp Shells_ (_Brachiopoda_). These worms are marine, and form a bivalve shell, the valves being on either side of the body. The body has long arms on one side of the mouth, which bear fringes; the motion of the fringes draws food into the mouth. They are also used in respiration. But few species of the Brachiopods are now living, though they were once very plenty.

CLASS VI.—_Annelidæ._ This last class includes the leeches, a flat worm, whose body is divided into segments; the earth or angleworm, a familiar worm of many segments, and the marine worms. Each segment of the latter bears clusters of bristles, used in swimming.

SUB-KINGDOM VI.

_Mollusca_ (soft). General characteristics—Mollusks, a numerous branch of the animal kingdom, are so called from the softness of their bodies, which usually have no internal skeleton or framework to support them. They are covered with a tough, muscular skin, and generally protected by a shell. They have a gangliated nervous system, in some cases well developed, the medullary[6] mass not enclosed in a cranium or spinal column—of which they are mostly destitute—but distributed more or less irregularly through the body. They have hearts, and an imperfect circulative system, the blood being pale or blueish. Some breathe in air, some in fresh, more in sea water. Some—both of those on land and those in water—are naked, others have a calcareous covering or shell. The larger marine mollusks are often guarded by very strong, heavy shells. Some are viviparous, others oviparous, and multiply rapidly.

Three general, and many subdivisions are recognized. The total number of living species is said to exceed twenty thousand, of which only a few can be mentioned. The classes under this division are _Lamellibranchiata_, _Gasteropoda_, and _Cephalopoda_. The chief representatives of the first class are all ordinary bivalves.

_Ostrea_ (oysters) are well known bivalve mollusks. The shells are so irregular in surface and shape that it would be impossible, as it is unnecessary, to describe them. The animal itself is very simple in structure, proverbially stupid, low in the scale of animal life, but highly esteemed as a delicious article of food. They are found in almost all seas, and in water of from two to six fathoms, but never very far from some shore. They multiply so rapidly that, though the consumption increases with the increase of population and the facilities for distributing them, the supply is equal to the demand. Boston is mostly supplied from artificial beds, and the flats or shallow bays in the vicinity of our maritime cities abound in such “plants.” Baltimore and New York have each an immense local trade, and the oysters exported from the Chesapeake Bay fisheries amount to about $25,000,000 annually.

CLASS II.—_Gasteropoda_ (stomach-footed). This class, including the great snail family, is a very large division of terrestrial, air-breathing mollusks. Their light shells vary much in form; when spiral and fully developed they have as many as five or six whorls, symmetrically arranged. The shell can contain the whole body, but the animal often partially crawls out and carries the shell on its back. The locomotion is slow and accomplished by the contractile muscle of the ventral foot.

CLASS III.—_The Cephalopoda_ (head-footed) have distinctly formed heads, large, staring eyes, mouths surrounded with tentacles or feelers, symmetrically formed bodies wrapped in a muscular covering; they have all the five senses, and are carnivorous. This class is entirely marine, and breathes through gills on the side of the body. The naked _Cephalopoda_ are numerous, and furnish food for many other animals. Those living in chambered shells, once numerous, are now known principally by their fossils, the pearly _Nautilus_ (sailor) being their only living representative. This has a smooth, pearly shell, and is much prized as an ornament. It is a native of the Indian Ocean, dwelling in the deep places of the sea, and at the bottom. The shell is too well known to need description, and but few specimens of the living animal have been obtained.

The following facts as to the physical organization and habits of this interesting species of univalves are gleaned from the American Cyclopædia, and given for those who have not access to any extensive work on the subject; they were mostly copied for the Cyclopædia from Professor Owen’s celebrated memoir, and the “Proceedings of the Linnæan Society of London:”

The posterior portion of the body containing the viscera is soft, smooth and adapted to the anterior chamber of the shell; the anterior portion is muscular, including the organs of sense and locomotion, and can be drawn within the shell. The mantle is very thin behind, and prolonged through the calcareous tube of the occupied chamber as a membranous siphon, and through all the divisions of the shell to the central nucleus; on the upper part of the head is a broad, triangular, muscular hood, protecting the head when retracted and used as a foot for creeping at the bottom of the sea, with the shell uppermost. … The mouth has two horny mandibles, like the beak of a parrot reversed, the lower overlapping the upper, moving vertically, and implanted in thick, muscular walls. … There are ninety tentacles about the labial processes and head. The internal cartilaginous skeleton is confined to the lower surface of the head, a part of the cephalic nervous system being protected in a groove on its upper surface, and the two great muscles which fasten the body to the shell are attached to it. The funnel is very muscular and is the principal organ of free locomotion, the animal being propelled backward by the reaction of the ejected respiratory current against the water before it. … The nautilus, though the lowest of the Cephalopods, offers a nearer approach to the vertebrate animals than does any other invertebrate, in the perfect symmetry of the organs, the larger proportion of muscle, the increased bulk and concentration of the nervous centers in and near the head, and in the cartilaginous cephalic skeleton. The mature nautilus occupies but a small part of the shell, the parts progressively vacated during its growth are one after another partitioned off by their smooth plates into air tight chambers, the plates growing from the circumference toward the center, and pierced by the membranous siphon. The young animal before the formation of these chambers can not rise from the bottom of the sea, but the older ones come to the surface by the expansion and protrusion of their bodies producing a slight vacuum in the posterior part of the chamber unoccupied, and, some say, by the exhalation of some light gas into the other deserted chambers. They rise in the water as a balloon does in the air, because lighter than the element surrounding them. They float on the surface with the shell upward, and sink quickly by reversing it. By a nice adjustment, in the completed structure, between the air chambers and the dwelling chamber, the house and its inhabitant are nearly of the same specific gravity as water. … In parts of the Southern Pacific, at certain seasons of the year, fleets of these little ships are carried by the winds and currents to the island shores, where they are captured and used for food.

_The Paper Nautilus_, or argonaut, secretes a thin, unchambered shell in which its eggs are carried; has tentacles or arms with which it crawls on the bottom, and swims backward, usually with the back down, squirting water through its breathing funnel. The argonaut differs from the true nautilus in having larger arms of more complicated structure, with sucker discs, and partially connected by a membrane at the base. It has an ink gland and sac, for its secretion. It has a great number of little cells, containing pigment matter of different colors, whose contractions and expansions give it a remarkable power of rapidly changing its tints. There is no internal shell, and it is ascertained that the external shell is peculiar to the female, and is only an incubating and protective nest for the eggs. The eggs are attached to the involuted spire of the shell, behind and beneath the body of the female. From the fact that the animal has no muscular or other attachment to its shell, and has been known, after quitting it, to survive sometime without attempting to return, the argonaut has been supposed to be a parasitic occupant of the cast off shell of another, but is now pretty clearly proved to be the architect of its own shell, which it also repairs when broken by the agency of its palmated arms. It is said the argonaut rises to the surface, with the shell upward, turning it downward when it floats on the water; by drawing the six arms within the shell and placing the palmated ones on the outside, it can quickly sink. This explains why the animal is so seldom taken with the shell. The shell is flexible when in water, but very fragile when dry. The largest known specimen is in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural History; it is 10 by 6½ inches. For a full account of this animal see “Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History,” vol. v, pp. 369-381.

_End of Required Reading for April._

JERRY McAULEY AND HIS WORK.

BY COLEMAN E. BISHOP.

Extremes of life meet in a great city. “Man, the pendulum betwixt a smile and tear,” here swings between the utmost extremes of squalor and splendor, misery and enjoyment, sin and virtue. That conflict between good and evil—old as the human soul, its arena—is waged nowhere as fiercely as here, where life is intense and assailable souls are legion. You have to go but a little below the surface of city life to find a worse than Dante’s “Inferno;” and if that were the whole story, if there were no compensating charities, one would feel it a mercy to call down on the city the desolation, and the peace of Sodom.

But, thank God! there _are_ those redeeming, reforming influences to give one new hope for civilization, new faith in humanity, or new faith in divine grace. Its missions and charities are the sunny side of New York. There are over one hundred and thirty established missions in the city, with a million and a half of dollars permanently invested, beside the other millions required to support them; and the eleemosynary and relief institutions of New York outshine the charities of all other cities, proportioned to numbers. Some liberal, devout souls seem to be looking after every conceivable phase of suffering and sin, and if the devil seems generally to be getting the advantage, let us believe that it is because his antagonists are not more numerous, rather than because he is any smarter or attends more strictly to business. Indeed, the ingenuity of some of the foes of sin, might put to confusion the proverbial originality of the great adversary. Of these exceptional efforts, perhaps there is none more unique than the work of the late Jerry McAuley, nor one that has wrought so great results with so little human aid; nor one to which the Christian believer can point as a testimony of divine agency with greater confidence.

Yet, a thoughtful study of the man and his work will reveal the rationale of it, and help us to understand why it took hold of a certain class in the way it did; that is, why he proved so exact a means to that exact end. The characteristics and training that made Jerry McAuley a successful criminal made him, when his nature and purpose had been transformed, a successful missionary. The son of a counterfeiter, he was educated in the worst streets and dens, graduated a tippler and petty thief in his boyhood, and took his degrees of gambler, drunkard, burglar and wharf rat; and at the age of nineteen was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment. Short and inglorious career of sin! To be followed by a long and glorious one of righteousness, and crowned at last with a triumphant death in faith! Here for seven years he hardened under perfunctory gospel ministrations and prison discipline, until at the right time Orville Gardner, known as “Awful Gardner, the Reformed Prize-fighter,” found Jerry and led him to that change which he always called his “transformation.” He was pardoned out, only to meet the killing, chilling reception that society gives to one who has passed the bars. Now followed seven years of struggles for an honest life. Only his soul and its Maker know what these were. At one time he relapsed into his old ways, but he was sought and reclaimed by agents of the Howard (“Five Points”) Mission. Strange, is it not, that good people are so much more alert to recall the fallen than to aid the struggling and keep the rescued secure? Why is it that interest in the unfortunate is deferred till interest seems useless?

Jerry now conceived the plan of a mission to people of his own old life, men and women tempted in all points like unto himself. He applied for advice and help to one or two clergymen and some wealthy church members, only to meet with mortifying coldness or refusal. We can readily understand this caution, considering McAuley’s antecedents and qualifications. He could hardly read and write his own name. Churches are so fiercely criticised that they have to be very chary about espousing unpromising enterprises. It was a _natural_ caution if not a _Christian_ charity; worldly if not spiritual wisdom. Besides, are there not still things that He hides from the wise and prudent, and reveals unto babes? At length, McAuley found men able and willing to help, and with their aid he opened his Water Street Mission, in 1872. This situation is one of the worst in the lower part of the city, in the “Bloody Eighth Ward,” the haunt of river thieves, sailors and abandoned women of the lowest degree. It was a “rum start,” indeed, to the denizens of Water Street when one of their leaders was graduated from prison to prayer meeting; and by scores they “came to scoff, and remained to pray.” This mission was a success from the start, and to-day remains in full tide of beneficent operation.

Two years ago Jerry was able to carry out his long-entertained desire to “do something for up-town sinners” by the establishment of the “Cremorne Mission.” It was a more daring undertaking because it had to do with more respectable sinners. He said it was a mistake to speak of those in the gutter as “hard cases;” their pride and reliance are gone, and they are not likely to be affronted or resistant when told they need a Savior; the prosperous and successful are the hard hearted; as you ascend the scale in means, intelligence and pretension, the harder the sinner becomes.

On West Thirty-Second Street, just off Third Avenue, was the infamous Cremorne Gardens, one of the most dangerous because _not_ one of the lowest resorts of abandoned men and women. In this vicinity are many houses of ill repute of the higher rank; gamblers and sporting men have their “runways” in that part of the city. Jerry “carried the war into Africa” by leasing a building next the “Cremorne Garden,” so that in all respects the sad satire of DeFoe was and is reversed,

“Wherever God erects a house of prayer The Devil always builds a chapel there; And ’twill be found upon examination The latter has the larger congregation.”

The passenger by the elevated railroad, or one of the several street car lines that converge at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Broadway, may see any evening a brilliant prismatic sign of “Cremorne Garden,” and seemingly just above it this more brilliant legend:

JERRY MCAULEY’S CREMORNE MISSION.

He will reach the Mission first, as he approaches this strange conjunction of stars; Jerry said he wanted the Lord to have the first chance at a sinner when he could.

The doors are open night and day, and some one is always there to welcome the visitor. A “protracted meeting” is held here all the year, and all the years, around. Going in, you stand in a long, narrow hall, with high ceilings modestly decorated; an aisle down the middle flanked by rows of oaken settees terminates at a low platform on which are chairs, a cheap desk, and a grand piano. The place seats five or six hundred. The hall is brilliant with electric lights, and the walls are illustrious with such Scripture quotations as, in the words of one of the converts, have been found most apt to “fetch ’em”—_i. e._, sinners. By the platform are conspicuous notices that speeches are limited to one minute each, a rule that is easily enforced in the case of the converts, because they have only facts to tell, and do not seem to be in love with that sweetest music on earth, the sound of their own voices. “One minute each,” Jerry would say: “Don’t be too long; cut off both ends and give us the middle; you need not get mad, as some people have done, if I ring this bell.” “All right,” replied one easy speaker; “If I get long-winded pull me down by my coat tails;” whereat all laughed heartily, as they frequently do.

Jerry McAuley’s method, first and last, was unique, but simple and very effective. Testimonies are the great reliance. They teach salvation by object lessons, prove the truth of conversion by concrete examples. There is no argument, no exhortation, no didactics, no theological disquisition. What need of these in the presence of these living examples? A man stands up and says: “For twenty years I was a common drunkard and thief. Five years ago I found Christ here. I have not touched a drop nor stolen a thing since.” McAuley was won by _proof_. He said: “It was a testimony that brought me. I was ‘sent up’ for fifteen years and six months; I listened to preaching there for over seven years, but I was still unmoved. Then a man came along who gave his experience. He had been a wicked man. That man told just my history; but he was saved, and since there was hope for a desperate man like him, I knew there was hope for me. And there was! Now you have heard the biggest debtor to grace that is in the room, let the next heaviest debtor follow me.” Others were won by the undeniable transformation of Jerry. These things were irresistible. Men describe the effect on themselves of these living witnesses:

“The Bible reading and the prayer did not have any effect upon me, but the testimonies of some who had been, as I could not help admitting to myself, just as I then was, did affect me. I felt that I was in the same boat as they had been in. The conviction of my state forced itself upon me, whether I wanted to think of it or not.”

“I came to this meeting three weeks ago. I was drunk when I came in here, but drunk as I was, those testimonies, such as you have heard to-night, reached me, and I went forward to those chairs. There I gave my heart to Christ after serving the devil forty-seven years.”

“When I first heard the testimonies here I thought those who spoke had great impudence to tell all about their past lives, but by and by I felt that they were describing my case. Then, as they told how Jesus saved them, I felt I needed to be saved.”

“As testimony after testimony was given I would say to myself: that’s me, that’s me.”

Another said that the prayer and Bible reading did not affect him, but the testimonies were “like shot after shot fired at him.”

These effects are driven home and clinched by direct personal efforts with penitents, by attentions that follow them to their homes or shops, or into evil haunts, by relief and creature comforts—in a word, by an interest vigilant, ceaseless, and tender as divine love, because inspired by it.

As the method is peculiar, the atmosphere of the meeting is. One familiar with ordinary devotional meetings, and, more, with revival efforts, can not fail to notice here the contrast. Speaking is uniformly in an ordinary tone, and in a conversational, matter-of-fact manner—an effect that is heightened by the use of phrases common in the resorts where some of the converts learned their vernacular. And prayer is specially subdued and low toned—the more impressive and reverential on account of it.

Then, one feels the momentum of the exercises and the tone of cheerfulness and joy that prevail. There is none of that exhortation to “improve the precious time;” none of that dismal bewailing of spiritual barrenness and besetting doubts, fears and temptations, which sometimes make devotional exercises mechanical and dreary, and furnish stumbling-blocks to young believers. These converts do not dwell much on their _enjoyment_ of religion; albeit, they do one and all give thanks without ceasing for their deliverance. One notes, too, the absence of cant, of quotations and set phrases; everything is original. There is little exhortation of others. In short, like Bartimeas, they know “Whereas I _was_ blind, _now_ I see;” and unlike the blind man, they know who worked the miracle.

It was the founder and leader of the two missions who gave all this tone to their services. He was of a medium height and slender, with a heavy, wiry moustache, keen eyes, a nervous temperament, energetic, quick-witted, sympathetic; one readily caught good feeling and confraternity from his presence. He would flash out at a hymn, a text, or a testimony, with a bit of experience. Before two sentences had passed his lips he probably would leap down from his place on the platform, saying, humorously: “I can’t talk up on that stage,” and go down the aisle as if to hold pleasant converse with his audience. It was a strange _melange_ of earnestness, experience, humility and wit, with not the least attempt at eloquence, and apparently no study of effects. He describes one case of conversion:

“This man had come into the meeting with his head about twice the usual size, and his eyes as red as a red-hot poker. You could have squeezed the rum out of him. He asked me to pray with him, but I hadn’t much faith in the man, but that’s just where God disappointed me. I was deceived. The man meant business.”

The missions are supported entirely by voluntary contributions left in the boxes by the door. Sometimes these run low. One night Jerry asked all who were glad to be there to hold up their hands. All hands up. “Now,” said he, “when you take your hands down put them way down—down into your pockets, and fetch something out to put in the boxes by the door.” He said, that to run a mission successfully required “grace, grit and greenbacks.” I fancy considerable of his influence was due to his knowledge of the secret hearts, the personal experiences of his auditors; he was like a priest at confessional, when out of meeting. There are no _verbatim_ reports of his talks extant, and if there were they would give the reader no proper idea of the man, because the grotesqueness of his language would probably be the most striking feature of them. He must have been heard to be understood, and even then I think he could not have been understood save by those whose experience and modes of life gave them the touchstone.

Sister Maggie is a typical convert. At one of the Cremorne missions a Sunday-school worker from the East Side told of his class of fifteen street boys and girls. “I asked them,” he said, “how many of them drank beer, and all promptly put up their hands. I asked how many thought it a bad practice, and only four or five responded. I then told them of the evils that drink led to, and cited them numerous examples within their knowledge, and finally asked how many of them would resolve never to drink any more beer. About half of them kept their hands down, and in a way that showed they meant business.”

This discouraging incident brought to her feet, on the platform, a tall, thick-set, strong-featured woman. She spoke with a strident, energetic voice, a Bowery accent, and a manner to which all thought of shrinking or embarrassment was a stranger. It was Sister Maggie. She said, as nearly as I recall the words: “This teaching children beer-drinking is the beginning of all the deviltry. I was passing a dive yesterday and I saw a little kid come out with a pail of beer that she had been sent for, and no sooner was she outside the door than the pail went to her head. That’s the way I used to do, and learned to drink and steal at the same time. But God can help us to reclaim even beings so badly educated. He helped me, and there can’t be a worse case on the East Side. There is not a dive over there that I haven’t been drunk in. Brother S. knows how often I have drank with him at old C.’s dead-house (rum-shop). Sixteen years ago I was a leper, a confirmed sot. If you had seen me you would not have believed that I could have been saved. Christians said I was too far gone; they said there was not enough woman left in me to be saved. I had had the jim-jams twicet. [Laughter.] The first time I had ’em I thought my back hair was full of mice—oh, that was awful! [More laughter.] I was just getting over the tremens when I first come in here. I was a walking rag-shop, and if you’d a seen me you’d give me plenty of room on the walk. I staggered in and sat down on the very backest seat. Now they let me sit up here on the platform. What d’ye think of that? God helped me, and he has helped me now for sixteen years, and I am going through. I am happy. I have friends and good clothes, and more than all, I have _a good home_, and that is what I never knew before.”

At the mention of the word “home,” all the woman’s instinct asserted itself, and for the first time her voice softened, and her manner melted; she sobbed, and sat down.

I can give no complete idea of the effect of this, because the reader can know nothing of the surroundings, the antecedents of the speaker and of many of her listeners, and the keen rapport that ties them together. These worshipers are a class and an organization by themselves; they have no church affiliations, and their worship is _sui generis_; many of them were outcasts of society in former years, they stand alone since their reformation, and they are drawn close together in their isolation. True, there are many among them who were always respectable members of society; many who since their conversion here have joined churches; there are richly dressed and cultured-looking people scattered in these audiences; but the fact remains that the genius and distinctive _personnel_ of the meetings are of the order of which Jerry McAuley and “Sister Maggie” and their ministrations are representatives.

I know of no religious exercises better calculated to inspire the true religious feelings of faith, charity, humility, gratitude, and rejoicing—the distinguishing marks of the original Christian following. But they differ from the noisy demonstrations which sometimes are taken for “primitive Christianity,” as they do from the cold and conventional worship which advertises itself in brownstone structures and double-barred mahogany pews. If one wants to get a breath of vigorous faith and wholesome humility, he should attend the Sunday evening services at one of the McAuley Missions.

Jerry McAuley died suddenly, but not unexpectedly, last September. His funeral, held at the great Broadway Tabernacle, was one of the largest ever seen in this city, and was attended by hundreds of abandoned characters who had been reclaimed through his instrumentality, and who were probably never inside of a church before, and may never be again. Women with painted faces, but with tears in their eyes and bits of crape fastened at their throats or arms, stood with downcast heads beside other women who, under other circumstances, would have shunned them. Thus did all classes testify to the power of simple faith and devotion in a poor, uncultured outcast. Over the platform in his chapels are his last, characteristic words:

“IT’S ALL RIGHT.”

“The workman dies, but the work goes on.” There is no calculating the power and extent of the influences this humble worker has set in motion. Beside the hundreds of living examples of his labor here, the seed has scattered to the four winds of heaven, and sprung up in various forms to bless the world—in other cities and other lands. The Missions publish _Jerry McAuley’s Newspaper_, which, extensively circulated, especially in prisons and “the slums” of cities, carries the glad tidings of the testimonies to do a silent and unknown work. An affecting feature of the private work of these converts is their efforts to hunt out and reclaim missing boys and girls. Letters are received from agonized parents, from distant points as well as the city, imploring the help of missionaries to find these estrays; and their efforts are often successful.

I close with one example of this radiating, ramifying influence: Michael Dunn was an English thief by inheritance, for his parents were thieves, and as he expresses it, “he had thieving on the brain.” He had spent the greater part of thirty-five years in different prisons, and continued the same life after coming to this country. One evening an unconverted man sent him into the McAuley Mission as a joke, but it proved to Dunn a blessing, for he found a Savior, and the desire for stealing was all cast out. He was moved to undertake that most important work, the provision of a home for refuge and work for his brother ex-convicts. After many trials and difficulties he finally established the Home of Industry, No. 40 Houston Street, New York, where many lost men who were a terror to society, have been made honest Christian citizens, and are working to save others. Nor did the work stop here. In the autumn of 1883, Dunn was called to San Francisco, California, to open a similar Home in that city, where his labors are as successful as they were in New York.

EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT.

TRANSLATION OF LUTHER’S FAMOUS HYMN.

Our God’s a fastness sure indeed, A trusty shield and weapon; He helps us free in every need That unto us may happen. The old wicked foe Now in earnest doth go, Deep wiles and great might In his fell store unite,— The earth holds not his fellow.

By strength of ours is nothing done, Full soon are we dejected! But on our side’s a champion By God himself elected. And who may that be? Christ Jesus is he, The Lord God of Hosts! All gods else are vain boasts, Our camp is in his keeping.

Though demons rage both far and near And gape our souls to swallow; Not all too great shall be our fear; Success our steps shall follow. The prince of this world, Though threats he hath hurled, To us can do nought, For if to judgment brought One word declares his sentence.

To let the word stand they are fain, And small thereby their merit; He dwells among us on the plain With gifts and with his spirit. What though they take life, Goods, name, child, and wife, We need not rebel— No profit those to hell, While ours must be the kingdom.

THE WEATHER BUREAU.

BY OLIVER W. LONGAN,

Of the War Department.

In an article on the “War Department” in THE CHAUTAUQUAN for December, mention was made of the weather observations by the Signal Corps of the army. This novel service—novel both in its character and in its assignment to a military department—was commenced in 1870, under a resolution of Congress, approved February 9th of that year, which required the Secretary of War “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;” and in June, 1872, the provisions of the service were extended to include “the agricultural and commercial interests” of the country. The plan of organization and the superintendence of the service were imposed upon the chief signal officer of the army, then General Albert J. Myer,[A] to whose memory the signal and the weather services are living monuments.

If failures are of value in guiding succeeding attempts in the same line, General Myer had the advantage of a number, both in this country and Europe, but attributing those failures to a want of proper agents rather than to mistakes of method, and being thoroughly imbued with the idea that efficient service from a body of men employed in the same enterprise can be obtained only by enrolling them under the oath of enlistment as subjects of military discipline, he could adopt all the methods of operation which had already been tried by others, and, uniting with them his own, could undertake the work with a confidence in men as much as in measures, and make sure progress over the same road that had been too difficult for others to travel. The signal service, which had been organized by him as a special and distinct department of the army, was well prepared to operate the most important agent in the work, the magnetic telegraph, and it has constructed its lines over a great extent of country not yet reached by civilization, connecting frontier military posts with each other and with the lines owned and operated by private companies.

The office division first established under the law of Congress, which has been mentioned, was called by the appropriate but too extensive name of “Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce,” but great works which have been proved and not found wanting may, like great men, afford to adopt simpler titles without loss of favor, or if they will not do so voluntarily, such titles will be fashioned for them and fastened to them by the people, who have not time to regard the official proprieties that would hold them off at a respectful distance by an appearance of gravity of demeanor or by an impressive name, so the office has come to be familiarly known as the “Weather Bureau,” and the officials in charge have accepted the designation without objection. It detracts nothing from the appreciation of the work they accomplish in giving information—premonitory—of wind and rain, heat and cold, frost and snow, river flood and ocean tide, and much more of interest and value day by day—yes, and night by night as well—for the inhabitants of this continent, and in adding to the knowledge of meteorology which is eagerly sought by the scientists of the world.

The service contemplated by Congress was at first intended—if we may judge by the language of the law—only to benefit persons interested in the commerce upon the great lakes and the ocean. Then the agriculturists were permitted to take share in the advantage afforded by a prevision of the weather. But we are all too greatly interested personally in the kind of weather expected to-morrow or the next day not to seek to profit by the work done for those engaged in special business when there may be great gain for us as individuals without robbery of their peculiar rights. Our interest moves us to speech almost unconsciously, as we meet our friends by the way and tell them, what they already know as well as we, about the kind of weather then prevailing, or express our hopes or fears for what soon will be. Work and play are sources of profit and pleasure, according to the influences of the weather, and the signs of olden time are numberless, to which we give our confidence, whether they come from the beasts of the field, or the fowls of the air, or the fishes of the sea, or are indications based upon a correct philosophy, well known but not well understood. The masses of the people will not give up their attachment to these signs, nor for the old-fashioned almanac which their fathers consulted for their weather predictions, but now that they have the aid of a great government institution conducted by men who study the weather as a science, and who have patiently held out to them the benefit of their investigations until the good natured skepticism and the raillery of the multitude who dubbed the genius of the weather service “Old Probabilities,” has all been banished and has given place to full faith and credit, they ought to acknowledge, and no doubt do, that their personal wants in this respect have been recognized, and they will take interest in the methods by which they are met and satisfied.

Every feature of the signal service has been brought into requisition and use for the work of weather observations and storm warnings, and the original bureau seems to have been so wholly absorbed in the new one that the corps will be known, except perhaps in official circles, only by its operations in this special field, until war shall call for the more frequent use of the flags and rockets and lights, by the aid of which a great part of the rapid communication pertaining to the business of warfare is carried on. The _personnel_ of the corps comprises a chief signal officer (brigadier-general), twelve second lieutenants, one hundred and fifty sergeants, thirty corporals, and three hundred and twenty privates. Prior to 1878 there were no signal officers in the regular establishment except the chief, but in that year authority was given to appoint two second lieutenants annually from the sergeants, and the selection for these appointments is made by competitive examination. Officers are assigned to duty with the corps by detail from the regiments of the army, and after a course of instruction return to their proper stations, and are succeeded by others. A few civilians are employed in the office in Washington city, in various capacities, including that of professional scientist and instructor, but the great work of observation is done by the army force, so called because every member of it is ready at any moment to lay aside his special duties and take up arms for any emergency. The pay of the officers is that of their grade in the army: $5,500 per annum for a brigadier-general; $1,400 for a second lieutenant, with an increase of ten per centum after each five years of service, until the increase reaches forty per centum (after twenty years’ service), when no more is added. (This increase, called longevity pay, is not given to any officer above the rank of colonel.) As the government is supposed to furnish a habitation of a certain number of rooms for each commissioned officer, there is quite an augmentation of the pay when the duty requires a station where there are no public quarters, as is the case in most of the service for the weather bureau, and commutation is paid. The pay of the enlisted men varies according to their rank and station of duty, but is based upon the army pay table. The pay of a sergeant, including all allowances, averages monthly within a few cents of the following amounts: At a military post where quarters and rations are provided in kind, $40; at an observing station, $80; at the office in Washington city, $100; that of a corporal $25, $65, and $85; that of a first class private $22, $62 and $82, and a decrease of four dollars for a second class private, the respective stations being those mentioned for the sergeant. The great difference in the pay of the same man at different places is made by the “extra duty pay,” and commutation of allowances (rations, quarters, fuel and clothing) when they can not be furnished in kind. The entrance into the service is by an enlistment of five years. Every man must pass a rigid examination into his physical and educational qualifications. The service presents advantages not found in any other branch of the army. The inducements attract a well educated class of men, many of them graduates of colleges, who find in the scientific part of the work at least, a congenial pursuit.

The school of instruction is at Fort Myer (formerly Fort Whipple), a military station in Virginia, on the bank of the Potomac river, nearly opposite Washington city. The course embraces the drill and discipline of the soldier, the code of signals, the construction and operation of telegraph lines, the use of meteorological instruments, and the method of taking observations. The central office in Washington occupies an ordinary looking brick building of uncertain age, half a square west of the War Department building. It was originally two two-story dwelling houses, but has received an additional story and “Mansard” roof, and has been fitted for its present use. The plain and dingy exterior escapes critical notice by the display of the mysterious looking machinery and fixtures upon the roof. An immense arrow (anemoscope), with broad feather-tip end, turns its point ever “in the wind’s eye,” and is imitated by two smaller ones at a lower elevation. Several sets of spinning instruments of various sizes stand in different places. These are the anemometers for measuring the velocity of the wind. The part of each visible from the ground is simply a vertical rod with four branches on the top, each branch having a hemispherical shaped cup upon its outer end, so placed as to catch the wind in its convex side. The force of the wind gives the cups a rotary motion in a horizontal plane, which causes the vertical rod to revolve and record by connecting mechanism and dials the velocity of the wind in miles per hour. Near the center of the roof may be seen a vessel with a funnel shaped top into which the rain falls and is measured to ascertain the depth in inches, of which accurate record is kept. Close by is a framework supporting a small cage-like structure with lattice sides and tight roof, within which are hung the thermometers, barometers, and other instruments consulted regularly at intervals, to ascertain the temperature, pressure, and humidity of the atmosphere. These fixtures and instruments are used for the purpose of obtaining indications of the weather, and for the instruction of “Observers,” and serve as well for standards by which instruments to be sent to other places may be tested. Only a portion, however, of the business of the office is done in the building mentioned, a number of others in the vicinity being occupied for the several departments of the work.

The central office is connected by telegraph with stations in the principal cities of the country, at the sea and lake ports, and at points along the Atlantic and gulf coasts, uniting with stations of the United States Life Saving Service, for it is there that the work of greatest value, the saving of human life, is done. The number of stations is limited only by the amount of money provided by Congress for their maintenance. The top of Pike’s Peak and the summit of Mount Washington both contribute their share of upper air phenomena, and the lowest valleys in the interior give up their secrets of the atmosphere at its greatest depth. What an ocean it is, with its surface which we are told is a certain number of miles above us, and its bottom, which we know is under our feet, its shoreless currents, some as gentle as the breath of an infant, others more fierce and swift than the whirlpool rapids of Niagara. To learn of these currents their force and direction, whence they come and whither they go, the laws to which they are subject, has been the fascinating study of amateur meteorologists and the pursuit of men of professional attainments in science for many years. But their discoveries were of little practical value before Professor Morse, on a May day forty years ago, sent over a telegraph wire between Washington and Baltimore, his first message in the form of a question which since has been answered in wonders by the same agent then employed, and the same now used to send warning of the coming storm, whose swift wings have no other rival.

The weather stations are distinguished under a classification made by a special service performed at each, and are known as telegraph, printing, display, special river, cotton region, and sunset stations. A number of them may have all the special features indicated by the different names, while others may have but the one feature which gives it its place in the class. The last mentioned are so called, not, as the name may possibly suggest, because they are located away off toward sundown, but because of the special observation taken at the time of sunset which affords so good an indication of the probable weather for to-morrow. It recalls the fact that the Jews were reminded more than eighteen hundred years ago of their habit of observation in this particular, which was a rebuke for their failure to read “the signs of the times.” A great number of reports are received at the Weather Bureau weekly and monthly, by mail from volunteer observers, from medical officers at military posts, from agricultural and scientific societies, and at regular times from meteorological societies in the old world, but as none but the telegraphic reports have more than a relative connection with the work of weather indications for which we are looking day after day, it is sufficient for the purposes of this article to simply mention the fact that there are several hundred of these mail reports from which record of permanent and daily increasing value is made for study and information of the climate in various sections of the country.

The station service necessarily commenced under the disadvantage of having no observers of experience, but there was only one way to get them, and the beginning of the work was the commencement of the education of the men who were to perform it. At this time there is not only the course of instruction at Fort Myer, but men as assistants at stations are perfecting themselves to occupy the places of those who have become masters in the profession, or to take charge of new places. The telegraph stations number about one hundred and fifty, and at each one is an “Observer Sergeant,” with one or more assistants. Their equipment in instruments is similar to that which has been mentioned in connection with the central office, viz.: For ascertaining the temperature of the air; the weight or pressure and relative humidity of the atmosphere; the direction, force, and velocity of the wind; and the depth of the rainfall; also at river stations for taking the temperature of the water, and for measuring its rise or fall; and at display stations signal flags and lanterns are included. The observers take the record from their instruments at regular intervals every day and night, Sundays and holidays included. There are three of these observations—taken at 7:00 a. m., 3:00 p. m., and 11:00 p. m., Washington time—telegraphed to the central office. Those taken at other hours are not telegraphed unless called for, but are recorded and enter into the weekly and monthly mail reports. The dispatch is in cipher, which permits the sending of a long message in from five to twelve words, giving pressure, temperature, direction, and velocity of wind, depth of rain or snow fall, appearance and movement of clouds and any special meteorological phenomena present, and adding from river and coast stations the stage of water in the rivers and the ocean swell. By preconcerted arrangements with telegraph companies, the reports pass over the wires without delay or interruption, and all reach the central office within about forty minutes after the observations are taken. They are at once translated and entered upon graphic charts—outline maps of the United States—on which each station is marked by its geographical location. By the use of symbols and figures all the meteorological conditions of each locality are exhibited, and so perfect is the system of arrangement for reporting and drafting that in less than two hours from the time the record was taken by the “Observers,” the officer who is to make the weather predictions has all the reports before him in the central office.

The ever-changing conditions of weather are in a manner photographed, and serve as guides for the work which immediately follows the making up of the charts. First the “synopsis” of conditions is made up, then the predictions or “indications” of the kind of weather expected, and the places where storm warnings are to be shown are determined, and in the form of a bulletin they are telegraphed to all parts of the country as the “Press Report,” to observing stations to be reproduced and furnished to local papers, posted in public offices and mailed to postmasters for exhibition in their offices, several hundred postoffices in some instances being supplied from one station. They are also placed in railroad stations and distributed from trains at points along their lines. Thus the people are advised of the kind of weather prevailing over the district of country in which they live, and informed of the changes that may be expected within twenty-four or forty-eight hours.

“Observers” at their several stations publish in connection with the “indications” telegraphed from the central office, the conditions prevailing in their own localities, and in large cities where weather maps are hung in the rooms of boards of trade, merchants’ exchange, or other important offices, they place or change the symbols used to indicate the conditions at all the stations, as they receive them from reports passing them to the central office or repeated from the latter.

The development and progress of all storms are as clearly delineated upon the charts prepared in the central office as it is possible for sensitive instruments to reveal them, and special attention is given to indications of high winds approaching the coasts. Orders are sent by telegraph to the maritime stations within a region likely to be visited by dangerous winds, and a “cautionary signal”—a square white flag with a square red center by day, or a red-center light by night—is displayed, remains out until notice is received from the central office that the danger has passed. This signal is used as the storm approaches. As the general direction of storms upon the Atlantic coast, or approaching it, is easterly or northeasterly, and the direction of the wind is circular and opposite to the motion of the hands upon a watch, with an inward tendency toward the “storm center,” as the storm departs from a station the wind will probably blow from the north or west, and a “cautionary off-shore signal,” a square white flag with square black center above the red flag, by day, or a white light above the red by night, may be ordered. Special record of the velocity of the wind is made at the stations when storm signals are ordered, and if it reaches twenty-five miles an hour the display of the signal is regarded as “justified.” These signals have become a necessity, and the occasions are exceedingly rare in which a vessel will leave port with one in sight until the captain or master has first made inquiry at the station for “particulars.” Coasting vessels are dependent in a great measure upon them; if they pass a station with the storm-signal displayed, they frequently escape encountering destructive gales by putting into the nearest port until the danger has passed.

The coast telegraph lines connecting the signal and the life saving stations have been constructed by the government, and are operated by the signal corps. The weather stations are equipped for making connections with the main line at any point, and many instances may be found recorded in the official reports, of shipwrecks on the coast to which relief has been brought in a very few hours by the prompt action of “Observers” opening telegraphic communication from a point abreast the wreck, direct to the central office in Washington, and sending information to be repeated, with the weight of official authority, to the nearest port from which steamers could be sent to the rescue. A vessel in distress, or in need of any information, if in possession of the international code of marine signals—a number of nations have adopted the American code—may communicate with the shore stations. By this code a number of small flags of various shapes and colors, used singly or together, answer to certain words and sentences, and these being translated into other languages, convey from the American or Englishman to the Frenchman, German, or Spaniard the question or answer desired, as plainly as an affirmative nod of the head from one to the other would mean yes.

The river reports are an important feature of the service. The temperature of the waters, surface and deep, taken regularly, makes a record for the benefit of those engaged in the propagation of food fishes, which is becoming an important government work. The stage of water taken in connection with the reports of rainfall and temperature of the atmosphere in their influence upon deep beds of snow and ice-locked streams affords ground for warnings, when needed, to persons engaged in any river traffic, or exposed to floods upon the banks.

The “waves” of temperature have become as real to us as those upon the ocean, and the prosecution of very many kinds of business, or the transportation of perishable produce is guided by the reports of the Weather Bureau, as it foretells the coming of heat or cold. The interior of the country will no doubt soon have the benefit of signals, as well as “bulletins.” A large, white flag, with a square black center, is now displayed at stations in advance of an expected “cold wave,” and before a great while we may expect the “limited express” upon the different railroads will be made the bearer of signals to forewarn the inhabitants of the country through which it passes of the change of weather rapidly following its track. The possibilities of the service seem to be unlimited, but the most careful watchfulness of the “Observers,” and the keen vigilance of the officers who direct them have not yet brought the elements to reveal all their movements. Sometimes, as a wary foe, a storm will steal in between the sentinels, or descend from the upper air, and gathering all its strength into one narrow channel, will drive destruction through town and country, and leave behind it evidences of power which we can hardly credit, except by sight.

One of the many specimens exhibited in the National Museum at Washington is a section of a young oak tree four inches in diameter, with a pine board, one inch thick, four inches wide at one end, and twelve inches wide at the other, which has been driven through the tree more than half its length (eight feet, the label states), and is now held as in a vise, the tree above and below the board being unbroken. This has been deposited in the Museum as an evidence of the force of the wind in a tornado that visited the vicinity of Wesson, Mississippi, April 22, 1883.

The progress of work in the Weather Bureau has been first toward encompassing great interests in the fields indicated by law, then to take up the smaller needs pertaining to individual benefit and pleasure, and as time passes and the service widens there will be personal contact that will give an intimate knowledge and impression of its value which narrative can not.

FOOTNOTES

[A] Died at Buffalo, New York, August 24, 1880.

HOW TO WIN.

BY FRANCES E. WILLARD,

President National W. C. T. U.