Francois Arago said: “France has its Cuvier, England its Newton, America its Espy.” In 1841 his The Philosophy of Storms was published in Boston. In this book Espy proposed to burn Appalachian forests to make it rain, is perhaps the earliest idea for climate engineering. In 1843 he was appointed the first meteorologist of the U.S. Government and was assigned to duty, first under the Surgeon General of the Army, next under the Secretary of the Navy and finally in 1848 under the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. His work in Washington, D. C. was concluded in 1859 and he then spent some time in visiting his relatives and friends in Ohio and Pennsylvania. While on a visit to Cincinnati, Ohio, Professor Espy was stricken with paralysis January 17, 1860 and died at the residence of his nephew, John Westcott, January 24. He was buried in the cemetery at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, by the side of his wife who had passed on ten years earlier. See also History of surface weather analysis William Charles Redfield Espy's formula for Lifted condensation level (cloud base) Notes References Moore, Peter, (2015) "The Weather Experiment, the pioneers who sought to see the future", New York Farrar, Straus and Giroux, . External links James Pollard Espy in Encyclopædia Britannica "James Espy and the Beginnings of Cloud Thermodynamics", by James E. McDonald, Bull. Am. Meteorological Soc. 44, 634 (1963). 1785 births 1860 deaths American meteorologists