next twenty-four hours or more, and the result is then published in the
daily newspapers and at the numerous post-offices throughout the land.
The matter is yet somewhat uncertain, and occasionally mistakes are
made."

"But will they ever get so that they can tell exactly every time?"

"We hope so. The warnings given are usually right, and are becoming more
and more reliable every year. In 1872 it was estimated that about
seventy-seven out of a hundred of them were found to be correct; more
recently they have been declared accurate about ninety times in a
hundred. So, you see, good progress is being made; and the Signal
Service system is becoming very useful to the nation, for property and
life can often be saved from destruction when the approach of a severe
storm is known.

"The New York _Herald_ has encouraged the study of the weather for many
years, and its managers now send word to England by the Atlantic cable
when a storm is to be expected there. They have lately sent notice of so
many ugly ones, which have promptly arrived, that our English cousins
are complaining of the unfair treatment of the _Herald_."

"Are they really so absurd?" asked Jack.

"Yes," said the Professor; "they facetiously intimate that when
Providence controlled the weather they fared well enough; but that since
the _Herald_ has undertaken to run that department they have been doomed
to storms, fogs, and rain. To give an instance of the faith, Jack, that
the English people put in our Signal Service, there is a story told of
an English lady who last autumn desired to give a lawn party. The season
was an unusually rainy one, and such entertainments had, in consequence,
been given up. The lady, however, sent her invitations, and calmly
announced that the day she had selected would be clear. When asked how
she had dared to take such a risk, she replied, 'There was no risk
whatever; I had telegraphed to the man in New York.'"

The children all laughed, and it was some time before the Professor
could quiet them sufficiently to add the few words that concluded his
little lecture.

"The most violent storms have been found generally to whirl in circles,
and are called cyclones. In some parts of the world they are very
disastrous. One occurred in India in 1864 that destroyed 45,000 lives in
a single day. Ten years earlier, when the English and French were at war
with Russia, a storm was observed to begin in France and to be moving
eastward. T