st be
prompt. * * * Its orders must issue, its signals of warning be given,
and its record thus made, sometimes when wisdom would delay, if
possible, and subsequent information show it had delayed rightly. It is
the simple duty of the office to act at each present moment as well as
it can with the information at that time before it. The reports to come
after can only give bases for future action, while exhibiting the right
and wrong of the past." These points should be borne in mind by those
who are disposed to find fault with some of the daily predictions about
the weather. If these predictions do not always come true, it is for
the reason given above. Each report must be made at a given hour.
Sudden changes may occur immediately after a report has been issued.
These changes cannot be waited for, and cannot always be foreseen. But
the general accuracy of the daily reports cannot be questioned, as
about eighty per cent of their predictions are known to have been
verified, and the average of failure grows less.

The method of arranging, comparing, and studying out the meaning of all
the different records of observations made at all the weather stations,
cannot be explained in a short article. But I may add that the weather
is, after all, not quite so capricious as its accusers have asserted.
And it has been found that all storms have certain "habits, movements,
and tracks." It is by applying these laws, and drawing conclusions from
them, that the prophet of the weather is able to tell so nearly what
kind of a day we shall have, and just about where and when the storm
will come.

Nearly all great storms have a rotary, or cyclonical character. The
little whirlwinds we often see on windy days, when the dust is caught
up and whirled around, are miniature examples of great storms which
sweep around immense circles. Almost all great rain, hail, and snow
storms revolve in this manner around a calm center where the mercury is
low in the tube of the barometer. Sometimes two or more cyclones meet,
and interfere with one another's rotary motions; and "when
interferences of this description take place, we have squalls, calms
(often accompanied by heavy rains), thunder-storms, great variations in
the direction and force of the wind," and irregular movements of the
barometer.

So then, considering all that the Herald of the Weather has to do, the
care and quickness with which it must be done, and the excellent
results he obtains,