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 office include not only regular daily observations of the changing depths of the great water-highways, but forecasts of coming floods or sudden rises and falls of the river-levels.  Before the great floods in the Mississippi Valley in 1874 the warnings given by this means, and which could have been given by no other, saved an incalculable amount of property and human life.  Bulletins are also issued regarding approaching freezing of our canals in the winter months, and have enabled shippers to avoid the accidents common heretofore when enormous quantities of grain, etc. in transit have been detained by this means, to the serious disturbance of the market.

Cautionary day and night signals are displayed at the principal ports and harbors when dangerous winds or storms are anticipated.  In one year 762 of these warning signals were displayed, and 561 were verified by storms of destructive winds which otherwise would not have been foreseen.  In not a single instance during the last two years has a great storm reached, without warning from the office, the lakes or seaports of the country.  The amount of shipping, property and life thus saved to the country is simply incalculable.

Tri-daily deductions or probabilities of the weather, wind and storms, with part of the data on which they rest, are published in all the principal papers of the country, and each man and woman can testify as to their use of them.  Who now goes to be married or to bury his dead or to begin a journey without consulting the two oracular lines in italics at the head of the leading column?  They have come to take part in our domestic lives.  The people would miss politics or the markets or literature out of the paper with less regret than Probabilities should the service be discontinued.

Besides this practical labor, there is the publication of nine daily charts on which are inscribed 2160 readings of different instruments, giving an accurate view of the general meteoric condition; monthly charts and charts condensing the results of years of observation; records furnished for the study of scientific men more comprehensive and regular than can be offered by any similar institution in any country.