The vast region now brought under the dominion of twice daily synchronous observations embraces an area extending two thousand miles north and south, three thousand miles east and west, and so fortunately located in the interest of the meteorologist as to include an important arc on the circum-polar thoroughfare of storms of the northern hemisphere. Simultaneous observations, collected twice daily by telegraph from two hundred stations, distributed throughout this great area, renders it possible at several central offices, where all the reports are received, to present to the trained eye of the forecaster a wonderful panoramic picture of atmospheric conditions. Each twelve hours the kaleidoscope changes and a new graphic picture of actual changes is shown. The movements of storm centers and cold-wave areas are noted and estimates made as to their probable course during the next twenty-four hours. Where else can the meteorologist find such an opportunity to study storms and atmospheric changes? In 1870, and for ten years thereafter, our forecasts and storm warnings were looked upon by the press and the people more as experiments than as serious statements. The newspapers especially were prone to facetiously comment on the forecasts, and many were clamorous for the abolition of the service during the first years of its existence. There was some ground for the criticisms. We knew nearly as much about the mechanics of storms at that time as we do to-day, but we had not, by a daily watching of the inception, the development, and the progression of storms, trained a corps of expert forecasters, such as now form a part of the staff of the Chief of the Weather Bureau, and from which the writer was graduated before he became Chief. Along about 1880, mariners began to note that danger signals were, in far more than a majority of cases, followed by heavy winds; they began to reason that it would be better to take precaution against storms that never came, than to be unprepared for those which did come according to the forecasts.