influence of the weather on the development of the future crop. In the winter season this weekly bulletin is replaced by a monthly bulletin showing the quantity of snowfall, the ice in the rivers, the opening and closing of navigation, the condition of winter wheat, and the injury done to crops by cold waves, frosts, or floods. In the interests of the lake navigation, a monthly lake chart is published, showing every feature in regard to the weather or the condition of the lakes that can interest navigators. In addition to the central forecast district at Washington, seven others are maintained, having their centres at Chicago, Boston, Galveston, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, and Denver, each of which issues independent forecasts or local modifications of those issued from Washington. In the interests of local climatology, the larger States, or groups of smaller States, are organized as sections, and publish monthly a section report, which gives every observation of rainfall and temperature made during the month, as also charts of isotherms and rainfall. There are at present forty-five such sections, including those from Cuba and Porto Rico. The analogous publications for the Hawaiian Islands and for the Philippines are specially provided for by those territories. The general climatology of the United States is provided for by the publication of the Annual Report of the Chief of the Weather Bureau, which contains several hundred quarto pages of tabular matter and additional special reports or memoirs. In order to secure prompt publication of general climatological data, the bureau publishes a Monthly Weather Review, which contains not only a summary rela tive to storms, forecasts and warnings, and the general climate and crop conditions, but also ten or twenty pages of special contributions and notes bearing on questions of meteorology.

All apparatus used by the bureau is carefully tested, and all stations are frequently inspected, so as to secure the greatest possible exactness and uniformity. The Instrument Division is in charge of apparatus and methods of observation. New instruments and improvements on old apparatus emanate from this division, which has become especially famous for Professor Marvin's work on anemometers, psychrometers, meteorographs, and the development of the Hargrave kite for atmospheric exploration. When ordinary telegraph and telephone lines and cables are not otherwise available, the bureau builds and controls its own lines. Special researches of any magnitude are generally published as bulletins, of which there are an octavo and a quarto series. Among these are those relating to international weather charts and storm tracks for the Northern Hemisphere; the results of observations with kites; and the study of the radiation of heat by the air. The headquarters of the Weather Bureau are located in a special building in Washington, D. C. The early history of this and other national weather bureaus is given in Bulletin No. 11; many additional details will be found in Moore. Meteorology, Practical and Applied (London, 1894). See also Abbe, Aims and Methods of State Weather Services (Baltimore, 1900)'; Bayard, Annual Presidential Address, before Royal Meteorological Society (London, January, 1899); Bartholomew, Physical Atlas, vol. iii., "Meteorology" (London, 1900). See SIGNALLING

AND TELEGRAPHING, MILITARY; METEOROLOGY; WEATHER, etc.

WEATHERFORD, wěтн'er-ferd. The county-seat of Parker County, Texas, 31 miles west of Fort Worth, on a branch of the Trinity River, and on the Texas and Pacific, the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe, and the Weatherford, Mineral Wells and Northwestern railroads (Map: Texas, F 3). It is the seat of Weatherford College (Methodist Episcopal, South), and has the Texas Female Seminary and Saint Joseph's Academy. There is a handsome court house. Farming, cattle-raising, and cotton-growing are important industries of the region, which also produces building stone and coal. Weatherford is the shipping point for this section, and has a cotton mill, cotton gins and a compress, bottling works, and manufactories of flour, pottery, and lumber products. Population, in 1890, 3369; in 1900, 4786.

WEATHERFORD, WILLIAM (c.1780-1826). A mixed-blood chief of the Creek Indians, the leader of the hostiles in the Creek War of 181314. He was the son of a white father by a halfbreed woman whose father was a Scotchman. He first came into prominence by leading the attack upon Fort Mims (q.v.) August 30, 1813. It is maintained, with apparent truth, that he did his best to prevent the excesses which followed the victory, and left the scene rather than witness the atrocities when he found that he could not restrain his warriors. At the battle of the Holy Ground in the following December he was defeated and narrowly escaped capture by Clai borne's troops. When the last hope of the Creeks had been destroyed and their power of resistance broken by the bloody battle of the Horseshoe Bend, March 27, 1814, in which nearly one thousand Creek warriors perished, Weatherford voluntarily surrendered to Jackson, creating such an impression by his straightforward and fearless manner that the General, after a friendly interview, allowed him to go back alone to collect his people preliminary to arranging terms of peace. After the treaty he retired to a plantation at Little River, Ala., where he passed the remainder of his life.

WEATHERLY, wěтн'ĕr-lê, FREDERIC EDWARD (1848-). An English song-writer, born at Portishead, on the Severn Estuary, October 4, 1848. He was graduated at Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1871, and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1887. Beginning with Muriel and Other Poems (1870), he wrote a large number of widely popular songs, of which many have been set to music. Among them are "London Bridge," "The Three Old Maids of Lee," and "Darby and Joan." Among the best known of his writings are Lays for Little Ones (1898). and many delightful stories and sketches, such as Wilton School (1872), Oxford Days (1879), and Tico Children (1884). He also wrote The Rudiments of Logic (1879) and Questions in Logic (1883).

WEATHER SIGNALS. See STORM AND WEATHER SIGNALS.

career he supported 'Lotta' (playing Quilp in her Little Nell and the Marchioness, Boston, 1866), Mme. Janauschek, J. B. Booth, Tommaso Salvini (with whom he played Iago), Mrs. Langtry, Julia Marlowe, Stuart Robson (with whom he played Doctor Johnson in Oliver Goldsmith), and other well-known stars. His last part was that of the Duc de Brissac in Du Barry, with Mrs. Carter, which he played till the illness that ended with his death, in Philadelphia. He left a son, Henry A. Weaver, Jr. (1858–), also an actor. Consult Clapp and Edgett, Players of the Present (New York, Dunlap Society Publications, 1901).

For a

WEAVER, JAMES BAIRD (1833-). An American politician, born at Dayton, Ohio. He graduated at the Ohio University Law School at Cincinnati in 1856, then removed to Iowa, and there began the practice of his profession. During the Civil War he enlisted in the Second Iowa Volunteers, eventually became colonel of the regiment, and in 1865 was brevetted brigadiergeneral of volunteers. From 1866 to 1870 he was district attorney for the Second Judicial District of Iowa, and from 1867 to 1873 was an assessor of the United States internal revenue. time he edited the Iowa Tribune at Des Moines. He was active in the organization of the National Greenback Party, was elected to represent that party in Congress in 1878, and in 1880 was its candidate for the Presidency, receiving a popular vote of 308,578. In 1884 and 1886 he was again elected to Congress by a fusion of Democrat and Greenback votes, but was defeated in 1888. In 1892 he was the candidate of the People's Party for the Presidency, receiving 22 electoral votes, and a popular vote of 1,041,028. In 1901 he became Mayor of Colfax, Iowa. He published A Call to Action (1892).

WEAVER, JONATHAN (1824-1901). A bishop of the United Brethren in Christ. He was born in Carroll County, Ohio; entered the university in 1847 and became bishop in 1865; in 1893 he was made emeritus. He wrote much for the Church organ, The Religious Telescope, and published several volumes, including Universal Restoration Not Sustained by the Word of God (1878) and A Practical Comment on the Confession of Faith of the United Brethren (1892). Consult the biography by Thompson (Dayton, 1902); and Berger, History of the United Brethren in Christ (Dayton, 1897).

WEAVER-BIRD. The popular name for a group of birds, forming the family Ploceidæ, very similar to the finches. The name has reference to the remarkable structure of the nests of these birds, which are woven in a very wonderful manner of various vegetable substances. About 250 species of Ploceida are known, of which 200 are found in Africa, and the remainder in tropical Asia, the Philippines and other East Indian islands, and in Australia. They are small birds, with a strong conical bill, sometimes coral red. The claws are large and very long. The wings are pointed, the first quill remarkably short. The plumage is frequently handsomely colored, many of the South African species being black and red, orange, or yellow, and some of them are much like the American orioles. There is great diversity in the form and appearance of the nests constructed by different species. One of the best

known species is the yellow weaver (Ploceus Philippinus), the baya (q.v.) of India. Many of the other weaver-birds construct nests pretty much on the same plan with this-pouches elongated into tubes, entered from below; those of some are kidney-shaped, and the entrance is in the side. They are very likely to suspend their nests in the same way from the extremities of branches, and often prefer branches which hang over water, probably as affording further security against monkeys, squirrels, snakes, and other enemies. Social habits are prevalent among them, and many nests of the same species are often found close together. Some of them attach the nest of one year to that of the year preceding, as certain Madagascan species, which sometimes thus makes five nests in succession, one hanging to another. Some of the African species build their nests in company, the whole forming one structure. Thus, the social weaverbirds (Philetarus socius) of South Africa con struct in communities an umbrella-shaped roof in a tree, beneath which as many as 300 birdhomes are sometimes sheltered. An acacia with straight, smooth stem, such as predaceous animals cannot easily climb, is often selected by the bird-community. The birds begin by constructing the roof, which is made of coarse grass, each pair afterwards building their own nest, which is formed in an excavation on the under

side of the 'roof.' As new nests are built every year, the weight of the structure often becomes so great as to break down its support. The wax bills, Java sparrows, nutmeg-birds, African oxpeckers, and other species elsewhere described belong to this large family, and make remarkable The widow-birds nests, often in communities. (q.v.) are closely related to them. See Plate of NESTS OF WEAVER-BIRDS.

WEAVER'S-SHUTTLE SHELL. A smooth, usually white gastropod, related to the cowry (q.v.), whose aperture is drawn out into a long The foot is narrow and canal at each end. adapted for clasping the round stems of the

WEAVER'S SHUTTLE SHELL.

alcyonarian coral Gorgonia on which the mollusk feeds. The best-known species is Ovulum volva. The genus contains many species inhabiting all warm seas, and the group is sometimes called 'China shells.'

WEAVING (from weave, AS. wefan, OHG. weban, Ger. weben, to weave; connected with Gk. Opos, hyphos, web, Skt. ūrṇavābhi, woolspinner, spider). The art by which yarns or threads of any substance are interlaced so as to form a continuous web, the threads being in two groups running at right angles to each other. The threads running throughout the length of the web are the warp; those interlacing with it transversely are the filling-threads or woof.

The operation is performed by hand in a machine called a hand-loom and by power in the power-loom. (See LOOM.) The warp-threads are arranged on a warp-beam and set up in the loom, having been arranged on the various loomharnesses and passed through the interspaces of

the loom-reed-usually before the warp is placed in the loom and after being stretched tight from the warp-beam placed at the back to the clothroll in front are ready to be woven.

There are three underlying principle movements in the weaving of textile fabrics: First. the 'forming of the shed' is accomplished in various ways, but results in separating the warpthreads into two or more series which may be raised or depressed, leaving a horizontal space through which the filling is 'picked,' either by the hand of the weaver or the mechanism of the loom, completing the second movement; by the third movement the thread left in the shed is 'beaten up' by the action of the lathe or batten which carries the reed.

The process of weaving is simply a continual repetition of these three movements in the order named.

The simplest form of weaving was that employed in making the mats of uncivilized nations. These consisted of single untwisted fibres, usually vegetable, arranged side by side to the required width, the length being governed by the length of the fibres themselves; these were tied at each end to a stick so arranged that the fibres were kept straight, and on the same plane. The weaver then lifted up every other of these longitudinal threads and passed under them a transverse thread which he first attached by tying or twisting to the outermost fibre of the side commenced with and afterwards in the same way to that on the other after it had been passed through the whole series. The acquisition of the art of spinning threads of any length enabled more advanced nations to give greater length to the warp threads, which after being arranged in parallel lines between two beams and held in position by parallel tree-trunks, to which they were secured, were ready for the weft-yarn, which, secured to a stick or threaded into a needle, was woven in and out of the warp threads by hand, as in the more primitive basket-weaving. The development of the modern loom and its mechanism is described in detail in the article LOOM.

Up to the end of the eighteenth century weaving was performed wholly by hand-looms; these were usually operated by the weavers in their own homes, and the fabrics produced were usual ly made from yarns spun by the weaver or some member of the family. About the middle of the eighteenth century machinery for spinning yarns began to be improved so that there came a demand for an improved loom; the result was the production of a power-loom in 1785 by Dr. Edmund Cartwright, which came into successful operation in weaving-sheds or factories in the early part of the nineteenth century. The development of the industry has been attended by some of the most wonderful mechanical inventions. The result is the automatic production by machinery of fabrics rivaling if not surpassing the most elaborate and costly made by hand with far greater rapidity and a greater degree of perfection.

WEAVES. While there are innumerable arrangements, called weaves, for the interlacing of the warp and filling threads in weaving various textile fabrics, these arrangements are all based on three primary weaves, illustrated in Figs. 1, 2, and 3, technically called the plain, twill, and

satin weaves, respectively. Practically all other arrangements are made by variations or combinations of these three.

2

2

X

X

IX

X

X

X

XX

X X

EX

IXI

In Figs. 1, 2, and 3, the horizontal lines A represent the loom-harness with the disposition of the warp threads on same; the weave is shown at B written out A on squared design or cross-section paper, each section representing the crossing of a warp and filling thread and the B X marks showing that the warp is above the filling at the point they appear; the blank sections show that the filling is above the warp; the threads as interlaced are shown at C C and a section of the fabric cut through the warp is shown at D. The plain weave (Fig. 1) is the simplest form

1212 212

FIG. 1. PLAIN WEAVE.

of weaving, requiring DADA! but two different movements of the warp threads. Four repeats of the weave in warp and filling are shown. From an examination of the several diagrams it will be seen that the movements of threads marked 1 are identical and of threads marked 2, while all alike, are exactly opposite to the movement of the former; this makes it pos sible to arrange the warp for the loom on the harness frames, as at A, and by raising No. 1 and depressing No. 2 the shed is formed while the first pick, or shot, A of the filling is passed through, then harness No. 1 is depressed and No. 2 raised and the second filling thread is passed through the new B shed; the third shed is like the first, the fourth like the second, and the weave repeated forms the fabric with the plain weave. Patterns in this weave can only be produced by the use C