Wild, then director of the Russian Meteorological Service (but now of Zurich), to set us a pattern of what a meteorological observatory should be, in the Pawlowsk Observatory near St. Petersburg.
It has been found by experience that the services of three thoroughly trained and skilled persons are necessary to properly conduct a meteorological observatory. It is the verbal testimony of Dr. Wild that it is better to do entirely without the records of self-registering instruments than to have the records made under the care of untrained and incompetent persons.
In the United States there long existed an apparent indifference to the demand for numerous continuous atmospheric records, the winds alone receiving the merited attention (except in an experimental way) from our Signal Service organization. A single exception to this indifference was the Central Park Observatory, which was operating unobtrusively along the right lines, but after the stereotyped manner of the older European observatories. For the rest we were mainly content with the observations made at fixed intervals during the day.
