e and the classics, and
long before he knew why began to study the mystery of the moving
clouds and to form his storm theories. At last he asked of Congress
an appropriation of five thousand dollars a year for five years,
but he was met with jibes and ridicule. Senator Preston, of South
Carolina, said Espy was a madman, too dangerous to be at large,
and the Senator would vote a special appropriation for a prison in
which to confine him. Espy was in the Senate gallery at the time.
Wounded to the quick, he left the Capital and went to New York,
where he delivered a course of lectures with great success. They
were repeated in Boston, and he made money enough to enable him to
visit Europe.

Not long after reaching Liverpool, January 6th, 1839, a great storm
occurred. He went to Lloyd's, consulted the newspapers as they
arrived, noted the direction of the wind as given at different
places, and from these data constructed the first great storm map
ever prepared, with the hour points marked. Every line and curve
and point exemplified his theory. He was at no loss now for
audiences. He appeared before the British Association of Scientists
at London, at which Sir John Herschel was present, an interested
auditor. He crossed the channel to Paris, and the Academy of
Sciences appointed a committee, composed of the illustrious Arago,
"to report upon his observations and theory." The effect of this
report, when it reached Washington, was not much different from
that which followed, afterward, the announcement of Morse's first
transmitted message over the wire from Washington to Baltimore.

Aided by General Jackson and the "machinery" of the Democratic
party, engineered by Amos Kendall, Mr. Van Buren secured for himself
the re-nomination for the Presidency. But he had great obstacles
to contend with. The financial condition of the country, deranged
by the absence of the controlling power of the United States Bank,
grew worse and worse. There was a total stagnation of business
throughout the Union, and from every section came tidings of
embarrassment, bankruptcy, and ruin. There were no available funds
for the purchase of Western produce and its transportation to the
Atlantic markets, so it remained in the hands of the farmers, who
could not dispose of it except at great sacrifice. In Ohio, for
example, pork was sold at three dollars a hundred pounds, and wheat
at fifty cents per bushel, while the price of agricultural