now as storm-signals combined with crop statistics. When I was in England, during the war, I proposed to FitzRoy, and after his death to his successor, Toynbee, a plan for making, by means of an elastic cloth stretched over his map, a caste of the atmosphere, so that he might take in his whole field of observation at a single glance, 'and so predict with more certainty. Suppose, for instance, with his map pasted on a table, he had bored a hole through London, Liverpool, Portsmouth, &c., and stuck up in each place a little rod graduated for the barometer; that his elastic cloth was then fitted to a slide so that he could set it at the height of the barometer at each of the stations. Fancy each rod to be surmounted by a wind-vane which could be drawn out or shoved in, to show the force of the wind at each place. Thus you would have a "caste of the atmosphere," and see all about it.
Brooke ("deep-sea lead") has suggested just such a plan to Meyers; and Meyers, I have heard, has adopted it. The idea, I think, was as original with Brooke as it was with me.
The following two letters, while recalling his advancing years, prove also that Maury's activity and enthusiasm were unimpaired by them:—
| Virginia Military Institute, | |
| Dear Rutson, | Jan. 15th, 1872. |
Yesterday was my birthday—sixty-six. Read my mercies in the first of the morning psalms, 71st for the 14th day, and imagine the unction with which I joined in the reading in church. . . .
| Dear Rutson, | _July 14th, 1872. |
. . . . I am to go to Boston on the 18th September, to deliver an address by invitation, and in October to do the same at Griffin Ga., St. Louis, and Norfolk. The Board of Visitors won't accept my resignation; speak in dulcet tones about my presence here. . . . I put it to the vote this morning at breakfast, "V. M. I.[1] or Richmond?" Unanimous for V. M. I. So here we rest for the present, at least.
The British Association wants me at Brighton. C.
- ↑ Virginia Military Institute.
