The Florence tribune., 1896-02-15
A WEATHER KITE.
To Be Used in AscertaininR the
 Condition Of the Upper Air.
Attached to Captive Balloon It VIII Aid the Weather Clerk In His obs servatlons-A New Scien-
 tihc Idea.


 The meteorologists have admitted for many years that some knowledge of the condition of the upper air will be very valuable as an aid to weather predic- ton. The upper air strata are peculiar ly inaccessible in the case of an attempt to suspend meteorological instruments for many hours above any local point, owing to sudden gusts and equally sud Gen calms. A captive balloon during strong winds is apt to be disabled by the variable pressure upon it's immense globe of confined gas. The wind, if very powerful, may drive the tethercd balloon downward sidewise and force the gas out of it's neck, causing loss of buoyancy.
 According to recent drawings, made in London, Prof. Willis L. Moore, chief of the United States weather bureau, is experimenting with combination of the balloon and the kite, by which dur ing dead calms the gas bags at the hack of the kite may carry it upward. while during strong winds the kite would take the pressure and protect the gas apparatus behind it.
 The Moore kite, as drawn, has tail, which may ultimately be dispensed with, as in the case of the kites devised L.y me in 1891, says the writer, Prof. William A. Eddy, and used recently in the Sunday World photographic ex- l,eriments above New York. The tail kites used by me on February 4, 1891, for probably the first thermetric kite observation in the world, were hexa- eonal, and carried upward very steep string, almost equalizing the rerpen- dicular ascending power of the tailless kite, the first experiments with which were begun in the spring of the same year.
 Instead of very large kite, such as the drawing of Prof. Moore's kite in dicates, I sent up several heNagonal tail kites, about five feet in diameter, Gying in tandem from one main line. Of course, in using tail kites, the branch line, extending to each kite, had to be about three times as long as that used for tailless kites, so as to pre- vent the tails of the upper kites from becoming entangled with the branch ;ng tandem lines below.
 found that when sufficient line was allowed to each kite there was no trouble in using tail kites with which to send up my thermometer. Prof. A;oore's possible plan for sustaining 3 balloon by means of tail kite is more likely to be immediately successful than If he attempted to balance in the air balloon tailless kite, because found during hundreds of kite ascensions that nobody knows what the wind will do next.
 Since fiat kites of light construction, in mild winds, require little tail, it seems to follow that gas-infated kite will need very small tail weights to balance it if the wind is light. In a strong wind tail about 300 feet in length will be required. Prof. Moore's proposed line of experiment. is interest ing and valuable, and if all the weather bureau stations are equipped with such an apparatus the predictions would be more exact.
 The experiments made with my kites at Blue Hill observatory, near Boston, where ink-recording instruments were held up in the air during successive days, amply established the fact that cold waves reach the upper air several hours in advance of their appearance On the earth's surface. I announced this theoretically in the American Me teorological Journal for July, 1891, but I had few observations from aloft in support of it, and thought then that it might have been due to coincidence. Since that time the elaborate experi- nlents at the Blue Hill observatory in August, 1895, have reaffirmed it. The curves have been carefully worked out at the observatory by H. H. Clayton, indicating that abnormal coolness of he air aIoft denotes the approach of cold wave which soon reaches the sur face. When the air rushes up Mount Washington or Pike's Peak it carries with it the kite observations. A re- leased balloon drifts away with the ap- preaching cold wave, and so the de- cline of temperature aloft is not proper ly compared with the surface tempera- ture.
 Kites of light construction can main- tain themselves aloft six days in seven at New York, and probably four days in seven at Cincinnati, where the wind is light. if night winds in both cities are included in the estimate. But Prof. Moore's kite, if he uses gas, would doubtless make the record almost con tinuous. Since there is often plenty of wind aloft and none at the surface of the earth, the facts are only approxi- mately known at present.-N. r. World.
 On the Desert.
 One Traveler-Ifyo wonder silent Sphinx n<,,,ld c1,aok what a lot she womb eavo