The morning times., 1896-02-11
QUEER Things IN THE SKY
Three White hpparitiOns that
SET the City Guessing.
THEY WERE AERoPLANEs
Weather Bureau Men Let Them Es-
cape from the Virginia Ellis and
Everybody in Washington Grained
His Neck ard-Interesting Ex-
periments in Kite Flying

Yesterday afternoon curious crowds
gathered all over the city and gazed sky
ward in an effort 10 see three small white
objects that hung in the air high above
the house tops.
Passersby stopped TO join the crowd.
Speculation soon became rife as TO what
they really were. One man said they were
only kites that had escaped from some boy,
but the fact that they were square. and had
no tail, seemed TO belle his statement.
Another thought they were a new kind
OF war balloon, with which the signal
office had been experimenting. The rays
OF the declining sun caught the objects
and the crowd on The corner could see them
plainly. They were white and box shaped,
andseemcd to be aIlattached, one toanother.
ALL THE CITY LOOKED.
A policeman came and Joined the crowd
and all the afternoon little knots Of people
stopped on the corner TO gaze upward at
the three curious objects that seemed TO
hover above the city, as though about to
swoOp down upon it. And this scene re-
peated itself throughout the entire city.
When darkness came down upon the houses
the objects were circling about over the
new city poStoffice and man on the corner
was telling the curious ones that they were
three strange birds that had escaped from
the Zoo.
The man who said they were kites spoke
more truly than he knew. They were kites,
and tailless ones at that, and they had
escaped but not from small boy.
They belong to the Weather Bureau and
form part OF an experiment for testing the
air currents at q great altitude.
WE'RE WIND TESTERS.
For some time past the Bureau has been
conducting these experiments. Prof. Mar
win has had immediate charge Of the flying
of these kites, although the experiments are
being conducted under the supervision OF
Prof Moore, chief of the Bureau.
Every pleasant evening Prof. Marvin and
his assistants have journeyed across the
river and up on to the hills back Of Fort
Myer, where an experiment station has
been established. The vulnerable point
in the forecasts of the Weather Bureau has
been their prediction OF the rainfall. Wind
storms, cold waves, and sudden changes in
temperature can be predicted with reason
able. certainty, but rain has been the stumb-
ling block, and every effort is being made
TO improve the service in this respect.
LOOKING FOR STORM CENTERs.
The observations OF the prophets have
shown them that the storm centers are about
two miles above the earth's surface. At
this high altitude the effects of an APP
preaching storm will be first apparent. By
means OF kites il is thought that recording
Instruments can be conveyed up into the
air for mile or two and then hauled down
and reading taken.
Not long ago the Bureau purchased two
miles OF small steel wire about the size Of
a darning needle and had it carted over
into Virginia. Here it was put upon a reel
and was ready to be used as kite string.
Then Professor Marvin went to work
TO invent kite that would fill the require
ments OF the weather men, Light wood was
used, and when he had completed his IabOrs
the results were not much Like the kite
the small boy flies from vacant lot.
Some were square and some round and
some resen1bled cross section of a Virginia
rail fence. No tail except the wire is used
in flying these kites and the fact that they
fill the requirements was pretty well evil
denced by those that hung about the city
all yesterday afternoon.
HOW THEY GOT AWAY.
Prof. Moore was seen last night and
asked about the kites. He said: They
escaped from the experiment station across
the river, aud, drifting into the hollow in
which Washington is situated, the air cur
rents have held them nearly stationary.
''It is wonderful what soa ring qualities
these aeroplanes possess. Those kites had
no tails except the thin steel wire, and yet
they stayed up there a mile above the
earth. We are trying TO reach the two-mile
mark and In our efforts TO use a connec-
tion between the kites and the earth that
win offer the slightest resistance to the
wind. we have probably used a wire that
could moi stand the strain. OF course, only
experiments viii determine the exact ten
sile strength necessary"
After dark a bright light illumined the
eastern sky for some time, and many con-
necied this phenomenon with the kites seen
earlier in the day, but il was sta ted at the
bureau that the two had no connection, as
there was nothing about the kites that
could possibly have been visible after dark