"And it is not the shipper, the vessel-owner, and the mariner who are alone interested, but it is the producer, the farmers of Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and their sister States, and the consumers of the Eastern States.
"The effect of the commerce of the lakes and their improvement even thus far has turned the Mississippi upside down. It has actually placed one of its mouths at Sandy Hook, so that the people along the Mississippi Valley have no slight interest in the lake improvements.
"Study the rates of lake insurance: their figures should have spoken in tones that should command attention—the losses have been in millions of money. The shrieks of victims by disaster should have been heard, and should have produced the required system of improvements to the lake navigation long ago.
"This nation is enlightened, our rulers never object to appropriations for scientific purposes on scientific grounds solely. . . . He then said the Government employés, the lighthouse-keepers, &c., stationed throughout the entire chains should be instructed to take observations and report them to Colonel Graham of this city; the Lake Board of Underwriters can instruct their agents in lake towns and cities to do the same.
"He then eloquently referred to the aid to science furnished by the electric telegraph, which had well-nigh given to the meteorologist omnipresence. It will tell of the barometric changes at distant points, foretell the coming storm. Then the associated press is another agent: it will take up and bear the news to the bulletin boards in distant cities, and to the press, which with steam press and steam-driven car will strike off and diffuse the intelligence to all quarters with a speed 'Rhoderic Dhu' and Malise never dreamed of; and thus all will know of the coming storm while yet a thousand miles away.
