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quite evenly distributed over the continent and its island possessions, and who are available to report on any matters concerning weather, crops, climate, or statistics. It has 200 officials and employés at the central office in Washington. It has 180 fully equipped meteorological stations quite equidistantly scattered over the United States and its dependencies, each manned by from one to ten trained officials, which stations are not only weather observatories, but are centers for the gathering of statistical and climate and crop reports. It has a central observatory in each State and Territory to which all subordinate offices in the State report and to which all voluntary weather and crop observers report. These central observatories are equipped with printers, printing plants, trained meteorologists and crop writers, clerks, and messengers. During the past fifteen years the work of the substations and voluntary crop and weather observers has been so systematized under the State central offices that these centers constitute the most efficient means for the accurate and rapid gathering, collation, and dissemination of statistical and climate and crop information. The State central offices are under the systematic direction of the central office in Washington. The central office at Washington is equipped with cartographers, printers, pressmen, lithographers, and elaborate addressing and mailing appliances for the printing and mailing of large quantities of national weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual reports and bulletins. The telegraph circuits of the Weather Bureau are ingeniously devised for the rapid collection, twice daily, of meteorological reports; they are also used to collect the weekly national crop bulletin. The Weather Bureau has 315 paid temperature and rainfall reporters who are now daily telegraphing their data from the growing fields to certain cotton, corn, and wheat centers.

The Bureau has 250 storm-warning displaymen distributed among the ports along the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts and in the Lake region. The Bureau has an observer serving each morning on the floor of each important board of trade, commercial association, or cotton or maritime exchange in the country, who displays weather and crop information and each day charts the weather reports on a large map. The Weather Bureau has 3,000 voluntary observers nearly one for each county in the United States-equipped with standard thermometers, instrument shelters, and rain gages, who have for years intelligently served the Government by taking daily weather observations and rendering weekly crop reports to State central offices. There are 14,000 persons reporting weekly to the climate and crop centers on the effect of weather upon the crops in their respective localities. These voluntary crop correspondents could quickly be increased in number to several hundred thousand if occasion required. In one month of four weeks there are printed and distributed 168 different State crop bulletins, four national crop bulletins, and 42 monthly eight-page State climate and crop bulletins. The weekly State crop bulletins are written by the directors of the different State sections, and the weekly national crop bulletin by Mr. James Berry, Chief of the Climate and Crop Division of the Weather Bureau, a man who has had many years experience as a writer on crop conditions in the United States.

BENEFITS TO FRUIT AND SUGAR

GROWERS

The utilities of the weather service are well illustrated by the benefits that the fruit interests of California derive from the rain warnings, which, on account of the peculiar topography of that region, are made with a high degree of accuracy but a few hours before the

coming of the rain, yet far enough in advance to enable the owners of vineyards, most of which are connected by telephones, to gather and stack their trays, and thus save the drying raisins from destruction. Along the Rocky Mountain plateau and the eastern slope our stations are so numerous and our system of distribution so perfect that the sweep of every cold wave is heralded to every ranch that has telegraphic communication. In the cranberry marshes of Wisconsin the flood-gates are regulated by the frost warnings of the Bureau, and where formerly a profitable crop was secured only once in several years, it is now a rare exception that damage occurs. As we go farther south and east into the Gulf and South Atlantic States, our frost warnings are made with a greater degree of accuracy than in any other part of the country. We find the growers of sugar cane in Louisiana, the truck-growers from Norfolk south to Jacksonville, and the orange-growers of Florida timing their operations by the frost warnings of the Bureau. From the estimates of these people it is indicated that the amount annually saved to them is far greater than that expended for the support of the entire Depart

ment.

FLOOD WARNINGS

No less valuable is the flood-warning service which is in operation along our large river courses. So much advance has been made in forecasting flood stages that it is now possible to foretell three to five days in advance the height of navigable rivers at a given point to within a few inches. The danger line at every city has been accurately determined and charted, so that when a flood is likely to exceed the danger limit residents of low districts and merchants having goods stored in cellars are notified to move their property out of reach of the rising waters. An illustration of the efficiency of this system was shown

during the great flood of 1897. Throughout nearly the whole area that was submerged the warning bulletins preceded the flood by several days, and the statisticians of the Government estimate that $15,000,000 worth of live stock and movable property was removed to high ground as the result of the forewarnings. These warnings are distributed from fifteen river centers, at each of which a trained forecaster is located who daily is in possession of such measurements of precipitation on watersheds and such up-river water stages as are necessary to enable him to make an intelligent prediction for his own district. On account of the recent disasters from floods in the rivers of Texas steps are now being taken to establish a flood-warning service specially for that State.

Measurements of snowfall in the high mountain ridges of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico during the past several years have given us information that now enables us to make a very accurate estimate in the spring as to the supply of water from this source that can be expected during the growing season. In this way the weather service has been brought into close contact with those interested in irrigation, becoming a valuable aid to them.

The heavy responsibility that rests upon the Weather Bureau in the making of storm warnings is gathered from the statement that 5,628 transatlantic steamers and 5,842 transatlantic sailing craft enter and leave ports on the Atlantic seaboard during a single year. The value of their cargoes is more than $1,500,000,000. Our coastwise traffic is also enormous. In one year more than 17,000 sailing vessels and 4,000 steamers enter and leave port between Maine and Florida. Their cargoes are estimated to be worth $7,000,000. From these facts one can readily measure the value of the marine property that the Department of Agriculture, through the

Weather Bureau, aims to protect by giving warning of approaching storms.

The climatology of each State is now so well determined and the information is so systematically collated as to be drawn upon daily by thousands of those engaged in public enterprises, such as the building of water works, where it is essential to know the precipitation on given watersheds; the building of culverts, where the extremes of rainfall within short periods must be known; the building of great iron or steel structures, where the expansion and contraction of metal with changes of temperature must be accounted for; the speculation in land in regions that are not known to the purchaser, and the selection of residences for health and pleasure.

It is not generally known that the meteorological records daily appear in numerous of the courts of the land, and that many important cases at law are settled or greatly influenced by them.

Under the direction of Secretary Wilson, we have recently arranged with Europe and the Azore Islands for the receipt of meteorological reports that, in connection with our present extensive system, enable us to forecast wind direction and wind force for transatlantic steamers for a period of three days out from each continent. This is an extension of the meteorological service that has long been sought by mariners. The new German cable from Lisbon to New York enables us to get direct communication with several islands, the reports from which are necessary in the taking up of this new and important work.

Recently the Post Office Department, through its rural mail delivery, has placed at the disposal of the Weather Service one of the most efficient means of bringing its daily forecasts, frost and cold-wave warnings to the very doors of those who can make the most profitable use of them. The latest forecast

of the weather is printed on small slips of paper, and each carrier is given a number equal to the number of houses on his rural route. Thus does the meteorological service insinuate itself into every avenue that promises efficient dissemination of its reports. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. The last appropriation for the support of the Weather Bureau was $1,058,320. It is the opinion of many insurance and · other experts that the meteorological service of the United States Government is worth over $20,000,000 annually to the agriculture, the commerce, and the industry of the country, and this notwithstanding the large element of error that must for a long time to come enter into its predictions.

It may be asked what are the prospects for an improvement in the accuracy of the weather forecasts during the coming century. To this it may be answered that when our extensive system of daily observations has been continued for another generation or two a Kepler or a Newton may discover such fundamental principles underlying weather changes as will make it possible to foretell the character of coming seasons. If this discovery be ever made it will doubtless be accomplished as the result of a comprehensive study of meteorological data of long periods covering some great area like the United States. While we cannot make such prediction today, we feel that we are laying the foundation of a system that will adorn the civilization of future generations. At the present time I know of no scientific man who essays to make long-range predictions, and in closing this paper I would especially caution the public against the imposture of charlatans and astrologists who simply prey upon the credulity of the people. I believe it to be impossible for any one to make a forecast based upon any principles of physics or upon any empiric rule in meteorolgy for weeks

and months in advance. The Weather Bureau takes the public into confidence in this matter, and does not claim to be able to do more than it is possible to accomplish.

It is to be regretted that the American press, the ablest and the most heroically honest of any in the world, does

in many cases not only print the twaddle of long-range weather forecasting frauds, but actually pays for the privilege. A large number of our rural press is imposed upon by these forecasts, and in publishing them become the disseminators of gross error instead of enlightenment.

WORK OF THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY*

T

BY W J MCGEE, ETHNOLOGIST IN CHARGE

HE Bureau of American Eth

nology was created to make scientific researches among the American aborigines. The work is conducted under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution, but the Bureau is maintained wholly through appropriations by the United States Government.

The office was instituted in 1879, primarily for the purpose of classifying the native tribes in such manner as to guide Federal and State officers in grouping them on reservations; and accordingly the earlier researches were confined to the territory of the United States. As the work progressed, it was found necessary to investigate the relations between the tribes of this territory and those of neighboring countries; and soon after the institution of the Bureau the inquiries were extended over the entire continent, and the appropriations were made for continuing researches in "North American Ethnology." Still later it was found that the ethnologic problems of North America are inseparable from those of the Antilles and South America; and about 1895 the field of research was still further extended, and the appropriations are now made for "American

Ethnology." Accordingly the present field of the Bureau may be defined as the Western Hemisphere.

The special researches among the aboriginal tribes are necessarily confined largely to districts still occupied by the tribesmen (though attention is constantly given to aboriginal relics and works in districts now occupied by whites); and the extent of the operations is limited by the annual appropriations. During the past three years field work has been conducted in about one-third of the Federal States and Territories, while regular or special collaborators have operated in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, along the Alaskan frontier, and on the western coast of Greenland, as well as in several Mexican and Central American States-Argentina and Chile. The work is seldom of such character as to involve surveying or original mapping; but extensive ethnologic collections are made, partly to facilitate research and partly to illustrate its results. The collections are preserved in the United States National Museum.

Designed primarily to develop a practical classification of the native tribes, the

* Reprinted from "Verhandlungen Des VII. Internationalen Geographen-Kongresses in Berlin," 1899.

earlier studies were necessarily devoted to tribal characteristics rather than racial features; and as the studies proceeded these characteristics were analyzed and defined in such manner as to yield a comprehensive tribal classification on a new basis. In its essential features the classification is, in the first place, dynamic in that it rests on the activities of men rather than on organic forms and structures; in the second place, it is demotic in that it rests on collective attributes (or on attributes of men considered as constituents of tribes or other assemblages) rather than on merely biotic structures and functions. Inother words, the press ing need for a practical classification of the American aborigines compelled the abandonment of the taxonomy borrowed from biology, and led to the development of a distinctively anthropologic classification, the units of which are human groups.

The recognition of the activities as essential characteristics of tribes and peoples leads to analysis of the activities displayed by individuals and groups; and, with the advance of knowledge up to the present writing, the activities have been arranged in categories which seem to be natural and convenient : (1) the simplest activities are in large part initially spontaneous expressions of hereditary faculty, and may be classed as esthetic; (2) next follow the activities reflecting the interrelations between the individual and group (somatikos and demos) and their environment, which may be classed as industrial; (3) then follow the activities and superorganic (or institutional) structures reflecting the interrelations among individuals and groups, which may be classed as social; (4) the simpler activities, which are measurably shared by lower organisms, give shape to a series of distinctively human activities, constantly exercised in maintaining and extending demotic relation, which may be classed as linguistic; and (5) the several activities of lower order produce a series express

ing the sum of human interrelations (comprising knowledge and pseudoknowledge in all aspects), which may be classed as sophiologic. The work of the Bureau is organized on lines defined by these normal categories of activities-i. e., the researches pertain to (1) Esthetology, (2) Technology, (3) Sociology, (4) Philology, and (5) Sophiology, respectively. It is held that this classification of anthropology places the Science of Man on the high plane occupied by other sciences in their modern or dynamic aspects-i. e., in those aspects in which action and sequence are conspicuous and characteristic.

Definition of the activities renders it possible to classify tribes and peoples in terms of activital condition or culture, and eventually to trace the course of human development. The culture grades may be expressed vaguely in terms of esthetic development, a little more clearly in terms of industrial development, or much more definitely in terms of institutional development; and a practical seriation of the course of human development has been based on the researches among the American aborigines and other known peoples. The stages are (1) savagery, characterized by consanguineal organization through the maternal line, (2) barbarism, characterized by consanguineal organization through the paternal line, (3) civilization, characterized by organization on a territorial basis, and (4) enlightenment, characterized by organization on a basis of intellectual rights. The culture grades might be expressed still more trenchantly in terms of linguistic development, and most trenchantly of all in terms of sophiologic development, were the data sufficient; and indeed the practical classification of the aboriginal tribes of America rests on the linguistic basis. The linguistic activities were adopted as criteria for the classification, partly because of the persistence and exoteric character (and hence the ready obtainability) of language, partly be

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