Its business is to predict the weather as nearly as it can. Most persons are of the opinion that it can do this accurately. At any rate, they blame the observers very severely when, owing to local causes, their predictions, intended to cover a large territory, are not fulfilled to the letter. If they predict showers followed by clearing weather in eastern New York, and it does not clear up in New York city till nine o'clock in the evening, inhabitants of the metropolis are very likely to say unkind things about the observers. They forget that the chief objects of this service are to furnish valuable information to mariners, to the great rice and cotton growers of the South, to the farmers, and to all other persons upon whose prosperity the weather has a potent influence. The fact that John Smith is caught in an unexpected rain and gets his new hat spoiled is not so important as the sailing of a ship, laden with valuable freight, into the teeth of a howling hurricane, of which she might have been warned. The government spends a good deal of money on this service. It costs $5000 to fit out a station, and the yearly allowance for incidentals alone is $500. This is exclusive of the pay of observers and the cost of telegraphing. And there are 182 of these stations at work now. Twice a day, at 8 A.M. and at 8 P.M., the observations of the weather conditions are taken; and they are immediately telegraphed, in a cipher devised for the purpose, to Washington, at the headquarters. There the facts contained in the reports from the different parts of the country are collated, and the probabilities deduced from them. The bulletins which are printed in the newspapers are sent out, and also weather maps. On these maps are printed lines showing the areas over which certain variations of the barometer exist, and other lines showing the changes in temperature. If you understand the manner in which American weather operates, you can take these maps every day and make pretty good predictions yourself. As I have said, it is from the local observations that the general predictions are made. In the city of New York the weather is studied away up on top of the tall building of the Manhattan Life-insurance Company. The Local Forecast Observer--that's his official title--is E. B. Dunn, who, when this was an army service, was Sergeant Dunn. Now the irreverent newspapers call him "Farmer" Dunn. What he does in his office is what all the other observers throughout the country do in theirs. I am going to describe his methods as he described them to me, and then you'll know all about it.