Congress, by an act passed during its last session, 1890, created a weather bureau under the Agricultural Department and transferred to it the business of weather prognostication which had been tinder the Chief Signal officer in the War Department. The service remains unchanged. It has stations at the military stations in the interior of the continent, at life-saving stations, and at other points in the States and Territories. Meteorological observations are taken at each station, and the information forwarded to the central office at Washington, where weather predictions for the succeeding day or days are made. The predictions are given gratuitously to the public through a system of flag signals, by the distribution of weather maps, and by publication in the daily papers. The percentage of successful forecasts of the weather during 1890 was 84.4. The Department publishes the result of the scientific investigations carried on by its officers in "Annual Reports" of the Secretary and Chiefs of Divisions; in a series of "Circulars" on special subjects, in regular "Bulletins;" and in a series of studies on "Insect Life." These documents are distributed gratuitously. _#The Department of Labor.#_--The Department of Labor was created in 1884, as a bureau under the Interior Department. In 1888, it became a separate department. It is a purely statistical bureau. It collects and publishes statistics on the cost of production, on wages, labor statistics, etc. Its six published reports are on (1) Industrial Depressions, (2) Convict Labor, (3) Strikes and Lockouts, (4) Working Women in Large Cities, (5) Marriage and Divorce, and (6) Railroad Employés. Had all the executive departments been created at one time by a constitutional convention, we should be justified in expecting a greater symmetry and uniformity in the naming and grouping of chief officials. An inspection of the various executive officers shows that not a few are under departments other than would be expected; and the naming of officials is often misleading as to their importance. Within recent years there has appeared a strong tendency to depart yet more from a systematic grouping of executive duties under departments. Executive functions have been given to bodies entirely independent of the departments. To complete our survey of the federal executive we must consider the following: (1) the Interstate Commerce Commission, (2) the Fish Commission, (3) the Civil Service Commission, (4) the Government Printing Office, (5) the National Museum, Smithsonian Institution, the Bureau of Ethnology, (6) the Congressional Library.