Very similar studies were carried out in America, a few years later, by J. P. Espy, W. C. Redfield and Elias Loomis. Early in the nineteenth century a copious fund of meteorological observations had already accumulated in this country. The first undertaking in the nature of a meteorological organization, foreshadowing the present Weather Bureau, was due to Josiah Meigs, Commissioner of the General Land Office, who in 1817 established a system of tri-daily observations at the various land offices. At an almost equally early period the Surgeon General of the Army inaugurated regular weather observations at the military posts throughout the country. Local systems of observations were established by the authorities of New York State in 1825 and Pennsylvania in 1837, and systems of broader scope by the Patent Office in 1841 and the Smithsonian Institution in 1847. Experiments in collecting weather reports by telegraph for the purpose of forecasting storms were undertaken by the Smithsonian Institution as early as 1849. At about the same period Lieut. M. F. Maury, of the navy, was gathering meteorological reports from mariners and laying the foundations of marine meteorology. Finally, in 1870, Congress was induced to establish a full-fledged telegraphic weather service, similar to those that were already in successful operation in Europe. One of the great promoters of this enterprise was Dr. I. A. Lapham of Wisconsin; it had been repeatedly advocated by Maury; and a convincing object lesson in its behalf was furnished by the local service of reports and forecasts conducted by Prof. Cleveland Abbe, at the Cincinnati Observatory, with the aid of the Western Union Telegraph Company, in 1869 and 1870. During the first twenty years of its existence, from 1870 to 1890, the Federal weather service was under the Signal Corps of the army. Since 1890 it has been a branch of the Department of Agriculture, as the United States Weather Bureau, though the name “Signal Service” stuck to it, in popular speech, long after it ceased to belong to the army. In this country weather forecasts are--or once were--said to emanate from “Old Probabilities,” or “Old Probs.” Our first “Old Probs” appears to have been Professor Abbe, who has explained the origin of this name in an account of his pioneer forecasting experiments at Cincinnati. He says of the initial Cincinnati Weather Bulletin, issued September 1, 1869: