t aide, Captain H.W.
Howgate (or, if you choose, Old Probabilities himself), wait to scan
through these many watchful eyes the heavens around the world
and utter incessant prophecies and warnings. Besides the regular
observations, report is also made of casual phenomena--lightning,
auroras, time of first and last frosts, etc., etc.

The history of the Signal Service Bureau and the establishment of
these stations and telegraph-lines, bringing the whole country under
the instant oversight of one intelligent observer, would, if it were
briefly written, be full of points of dramatic interest. As yet it
must be gathered out of acts of Congress and official reports. The
service has now existed for fourteen years, but is still without that
full recognition by Congress which would ensure its permanency.
"With interests depending on its daily work as great as can by any
possibility rest upon any other branch of the service, it is yet
regarded as an experiment, an offshoot of regular army service
existing on sufferance, liable at any moment to be hindered in its
operations, if not totally abolished." The benefit of this daily work,
however, affects too nearly and constantly the mass of the people to
allow much danger of its final extinction. What the real value of this
practical work is can be gathered not only from the dry statistics of
annual reports, but from the increased confidence placed in it by the
people, the unscientific working majority.

The help given to farmers should rank perhaps first in estimating the
value of this work. At midnight of each day the midnight forecast is
telegraphed to twenty centres of distribution, located strictly with
regard to the agricultural population. The telegrams, as soon as
received, are printed by signal-service men, rapidly enveloped in
wrappers already stamped and addressed, and sent by the swiftest
conveyance to every post-office which can be reached before 2 P.M. of
the same day, and when received are displayed on bulletin-boards. The
average time elapsing from the moment when the bulletin leaves the
central office until it reaches every post-office from Maine to
Florida is ten hours. In 1874, 6286 of these farmers' bulletins
were issued, and when we consider that by each one of them reliable
information as to the chances of success or failure in planting or
reaping was given, we gain some idea of the directness and force of
the work of this bureau.

The river reports of the of