Mr. MARVIN. No, sir. It is an arrangement with the Western Union and Commercial companies. The telegraph company sets up for the exclusive use of the Weather Bureau what they call circuits, connecting six or eight stations together, or possibly 10 or 12, which is the maximum, and as the reports from each of those stations are passed over those circuits they are copied at each station on the circuit.

Certain outlying stations which are not on the circuit telegraph their reports into a station which is on a circuit. It is a very complicated and difficult thing to describe without a chart showing it, which I might have brought down if I had anticipated your question. It accomplishes the distribution of these 200 reports from stations in about 60 or 75 minutes, in such a way that Washington gets all the reports: Chicago gets nearly all of them; San Francisco gets a good many; New Orleans, which is a district center, gets a considerable number; Denver, which is a district center, gets a considerable number of reports but not all. The other cities get a considerable number of reports, and on these reports they prepare different maps that I have referred to a while ago, and also make other uses of the material.

FORECASTING DISTRICTS.

Mr. ANDERSON. You say Chicago is a forecast district. What section of the country does Washington forecast direct?

Mr. MARVIN. Washington covers the eastern part of the country, all east of the Mississippi River except Michigan and Indiana; all the States east of the Mississippi River are forecast for at the Washington office. Chicago has Michigan and Indiana and States in the Northwest, not including Colorado. I can give you the exact list of States in the record.

Mr. ANDERSON. I wish you would do that.

STATES IN THE WASHINGTON (D. C.) FORECAST DISTRICT.

The New England States, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Mr. MARVIN. Then there is a district forecast at Denver. That is a small district, covering Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. San Francisco is another large district, which controls the Pacific coast and some of the States just east of the mountains. New Orleans is the district that controls the Gulf, Texas, and Southwest. Mr. ANDERSON. Now, where do you get reports from ocean vessels? Where do they come to Washington?

Mr. MARVIN. They come to Washington from the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf, and reports from the Pacific come in through Seattle and San Francisco.

Mr. ANDERSON. Does New Orleans get those reports direct, or do they come from Washington?

Mr. MARVIN. The reports that come from the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf do not come to Washington direct. Mr. Weightman explains to me that certain of the reports come into New Orleans, for example, as being the first shore point from the sea, and those reports are forwarded to Washington, and we repeat to New Orleans the

reports received from other sources and needed for his district. New Orleans also receives reports from Mexico. Now, in addition to the reports which come from our own stations, we get reports from European points by exchange and cooperation.

Mr. ANDERSON. Mr. Marvin, this item includes, as I recall it, your special frost-warning work and something of that kind?

Mr. MARVIN. The frost-warning work is not in this item. make a distinction between frost-warning, and fruit-spray and harvestweather forecasts.

FRUIT-SPRAY AND HARVEST-WEATHER FORECAST WORK.

Mr. MAGEE. There is an increase under the "out of Washington item of $7,495. Can this amount be expended for fruit-spray work? Mr. MARVIN. This increase as approved in the Budget is for other work.

Mr. MAGEE. I have had quite a bit of correspondence from the fruit-growing interests, all expressing great interest in the fruit-spray work. In your opinion, how much would be required for this kind of service?

Mr. MARVIN. We have figured that $12,000 would be required to satisfactorily conduct the fruit-spray and harvest-weather work.

Mr. MAGEE. There is an insistent demand from the fruit-growing sections of central and western New York that a reasonable appropriation be made to meet the demands for this service in the fruitgrowing sections of the country.

Mr. WASON. I notice that last year your appropriation was $1,332,340 under this item that we are considering on page 43. Am I right?

Mr. MARVIN. Yes.

Mr. WASON. The estimate presented at this time is for an increase of $7,495. In reading the portion preceding these figures the word "volcanology" is eliminated. My recollection is that you had about $10,000 for that purpose.

Mr. MARVIN. That is correct.

Mr. WASON. What is to hinder this committee from adding $2,000 and using the $10,000 which was eliminated, making $12,000. Then the fruitgrowers would have the benefit of that transfer and increase of $2,000. What becomes of the $10,000 that was used last year for volcanology?

Mr. MARVIN. That $10,000 has been transferred to the Department of the Interior. Your question has reference to Mr. Magee's inquiry respecting appropriations to cover fruit spray and harvest weather forecast work throughout the country. With respect to the $10,000 formerly used for volcanology work, I should like to give you the status of that item.

I have here a letter from Secretary Wallace dated September 29, addressed to General Lord, Director of the Budget, which I started to read awhile ago. Referring to the transfer of volcanology, the letter in part reads as follows:

"The suggested transfer of the work is agreeable to both departments concerned, and accordingly the Weather Bureau appropriation referred to above has been reduced by $10,000 in the estimates submitted September 15, in the presumption that the estimate of the

Department of the Interior would be increased by a like amount. It is assumed that the representatives of the Interior Department have requested that the appropriation for the Geological Survey be increased by the amount named plus any additional sum which may be required because of the classification act."

I would like to add also that we wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Interior calling his attention to the fact that this had been done. Now, I submit this evidence here, that the Department of Agriculture's appropriation for the Weather Bureau has been decreased by that amount.

Mr. ANDERSON. But it has not. The estimates have not.

Mr. MARVIN. We believe that transfer by the Director of the Budget was made as we requested.

Mr. ANDERSON. Your figures show an increase of over $7,000.
Mr. MARVIN. That is a net increase of $7,495.

Mr. ANDERSON. That is an actual increase.

Mr. MARVIN. The total increase is $17,495, the net increase is $7,495.

Mr. JUMP. The chairman of the subcommittee that handled the Interior Department estimates, Mr. Cramton, I am told had some doubt about the status of this volcanological work, so before coming over here this morning I arranged with Professor Marvin to go with me to the Budget Bureau this afternoon and check up on it and see what had been done; so that if we find that they have not taken it over, in order to do justice to that work we will come back to this committee and suggest that you let it stay in here, or else make some arrangement with Mr. Cramton so that when the Interior Department bill is up on the floor and the Geological Survey item is reached he can make some statement to remove the confusion. It was a great surprise to us, because we thought it was all taken care of. I was not prepared for it at all, because I was told it was all taken care of and put in the Interior Department bill.

Mr. ANDERSON. Assuming that volcanology is taken over by you, there is an additional $10,000 put on the appropriation.

Mr. WASON. It must have been taken out, because the record shows that $10,000 has not been put into this estimate of $1,339,735, if I understand it.

Mr. MARVIN. The actual increase is $17,495.

Mr. WASON. That is what I did not understand.

Mr. MAGEE. As was suggested by Mr. Wason, if you add $2,000 to that $10,000 you can take care of the spray interests of the entire country?

Mr. MARVIN. This $10,000 which the bureau understood had been transferred constitutes part of a total increase of $17,495. We did not understand that any was available for fruit-spray work in the program approved by the Director of the Budget.

Mr. WASON. Is it not a fact that this has been absorbed in salaries somewhere?

Mr. MARVIN. No, sir; it has not become available yet, Mr. Wason. Mr. WASON. I mean it has become available as written, assuming it would become available in that way.

Mr. JUMP. In other words, the question is, Professor Marvin, if this $10,000 has been put in the Interior Department bill, will you have the $10,000 available for this work?

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Mr. MARVIN. We would have $10,000 that could be used in various kinds of field work.

Mr. ANDERSON. In other words, if you have this $10,000 and you do not want to use it for spraying service, but for some other purpose, you can but you will have to do what the committee says, I take it?

Mr. MARVIN. I certainly will. We do not know that we will get this $10,000 because doubt has been raised that the amount has been transferred to the Interior Department. What I am anxious to avoid is this. If we have already lost this $10,000, and you have another $10,000 transferrrd from our appropriation to the Interior Department, we will lose $20,000 to cover $10,000 worth of work.

Mr. BUCHANAN. What would it take to meet all the demands for spraying service?

Mr. MARVIN. Our estimate for that work was $12,000.

PROVISION FOR VOLCANOLOGY WORK IN INTERIOR DEPARTMENT APPROPRIATION BILL.

Mr. ANDERSON. On page 73 of the Interior Department bill I call your attention to this language: "For geologic surveys in the various portions of the United States, $300,000, of which amount not to exceed $10,000 may be used for work in volcanology in the Hawaiian Islands."

Mr. MARVIN. That is what we thought. We understood that and we looked it up when we got our estimates back and found that that seemed to imply that the amounts had been transferred there. Our understanding is that in the adjustment of that amount of $300,000 by the committee which handled it there is now no $10,000 additional which the Interior Department may use for that purpose.

Mr. JUMP. It would be, if you made it mandatory, but it reads that the Interior Department "may" expend that amount. Mr. MARVIN. Yes.

Mr. JUMP. They make it permissive; they say "may be used." If it is not mandatory, and they have suffered reductions, naturally they might not feel like putting $10,000 on something new like this item would be. You could say "shall be used" if $10,000 really has been added for that purpose. It is a bad situation, of course.

Mr. ANDERSON. Personally, I never thought the word "shall" was desirable in a thing of this kind.

Mr. JUMP. It is not. It might be that only $8,000 would be required to be expended, for instance.

Mr. ANDERSON. I have always assumed that such language as would be carried there would be assumed by the department as a direction to use the amount, or whatever portion was necessary, for the service indicated.

Of course, if you can not depend upon that interpretation by the department you will have to use the words "shall be used," which is clearly undesirable.

Mr. MARVIN. If we find this $10,000 was not put in the Interior Department bill there is grave danger that the whole Hawaiian volcanic appropriation would be unprovided for.

Mr. ANDERSON. When the provision is an authorization in the Interior Department bill, I do not see how we can do anything else but assume that it is going to go that way.

Mr. JUMP. I think that is entirely safe. We will have to find out from Mr. Cramton just what the situation is.

WEATHER REPORTS RECEIVED FROM ALASKA, EASTERN EUROPE, and SHIPS AT SEA.

Mr. ANDERSON. Now, did you complete your general statement as to the work that you are doing under this general item?

Mr. MARVIN. No, sir. I was on the point of showing you that in addition to what we get from the stations of our own in the United States, we get reports from stations in the Aleutian Islands region, and from ships at sea on the Pacific, and in eastern Europe, in Scandinavia, Spitzbergen, and reports on the Atlantic Ocean.

These reports come to us by exchange from the other meteorological nations of the world. They come by wireless and a few by cable. In the olden time we used to get reports by cable, but nearly all of them are transmitted by wireless now. This map of the Northern Hemisphere is one of the most valuable adjuncts we have, because you can see that within the territory of the United States you do not get much of a picture of this pressure distribution for the whole atmosphere. We are reaching out into the whole Northern Hemisphere to get these reports, and we need reports in the Arctic to help out the situation. Our general work is based on these daily telegraphic reports. This is a circumpolar map of the Northern Hemisphere. This map is made each day in the forecast division.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Where do you get reports of tropical storms that will strike points like Galveston ?

Mr. MARVIN. Those come from vessels in the Caribbean Sea, mostly.

Mr. BUCHANAN. From whom do you get them? From your own service or from foreign service?

Mr. MARVIN. All ships that are navigating in those waters without distinction of nationality, merchant ships navigating in that locality, file a message or send a radiogram to the nearest shore station.

Mr. BUCHANAN. And in those wireless messages you get the direction of those tropical storms, and you can predict where they will reach?

Mr. MARVIN. It goes on this map. We have stations on the islands in the Caribbean Sea and some in South American States. Reports from ships out at sea help us to draw these barometric lines, as shown on this map. This [pointing to a set of concentric lines] is what we call the storm area. Down in the Gulf the diameter is much smaller than this, and when the storm is located there it has a lot of lines around it. The change in position of that group of lines down in the Gulf from observation to observation enables us to tell in which direction the storm is moving. It is necessary to make observations at regular and frequent intervals of 6 to 12 hours, and it is from successive observations of this kind charted on the map that we are able to tell how the storm is moving.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Who makes the observations?

Mr. MARVIN. One of the officers aboard the ship.

Mr. BUCHANAN. And on that information you give the storm warnings?

Mr. MARVIN. Yes, sir