The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-04-16
FLOATING MOUNTAINS
END OF FASCINATING RESEARCHES
BY GOVERNMENT CLOUD
SURVEY
DISCOVERIES THAT SURPRISE

Clouds Which, When Measured,
Were Found to BE Sn0w-Capped
Mountains, Taller by Far Than
Any ON Earth-75 Degrees Be-
low Zero ON Their SUBMITS In
Midsummer.
WASHINGTON, April 1S.-The work Of
Uncle Sans cloud survey, perhaps the
most fascinating Of recent scientific en-
| terprises, is about finished. Only a few
| final computations remain to be made.
Shortly We are to be presented with
hundreds of hitherto unknown and I'M
! suspected facts concerning those float
| ing, melting hills and mountain
ranges of vapor which we daily behold
| In old Earth's upper air environs. Some
time ago we entered a compact with
other nations whereby each were to make
| a complete survey of its own clouds. Our
share of the novel work was entrusted
to Prof. Frank II. Bigelow, the well
known meteorologist and astronomer of
the weather bureau. The professor
day or two ago granted the writer the
the collected data as he thought might
be of interest to the popular mind.
The cloud surveys work was done at
fourteen stations uniformly distributed
over the country. Each observer employ
ed a specially designed instrument known
as nephoscope, primarily a graduated
mirror which determined the velocity
and direction Of clouds by measuring the
motions Of their images across its face.
What was known as the primary station
in reality two stations-was establish
ed here in Washington at either end of
base line carefully measured off be-
tween the roof of the weather bureau
and the west tower of the war depart
ment building.
TWO CEMENT FOUNDATIONS
marking the extremities Of the lines were
the supports of theodolites specially
adapted to cloud surveying, it being
found that telescopes attached to ordi-
nary instruments Of tho kind could not
be applied to Clouds which become invis-
ible whom thus viewed, they were replace
ed by contcal tubes each with pin hole
at the eye-piece and at the greater end
q plain glass disk ruled with cross lines
AA AcidtAou " WHICH SclcCIcQ pOlnt6 upon
the cloud forms could be located. The OBJ
servers at the two ends Of the base line
were in complete telephone connection.
They wore helmet-receivers, such as en-
ployed by hello girls" and had fixed be-
fore them convenient transmitters admit
ting Of the free employment of the hands
Tor the manipulation of the theodolites
The standard weather bureau clock beat
seconds through the telephone circuit to
IN he A. ~
Iy Each reading was made after careful
telephone agreement upon a particular
point on each cloud. Other points being
sighted successfully, the angles consider
ed in connection with the known length
OF the base line, gave the height of the
cloud above the earth, its dimensions
and, when readings from the same cloud
were made after given intervals, their
speed of travel.
These data, whose computation Prof
Bigelow is fast completing, will be of
value not only to meteorologists. but to
that great future school Of scientists who
are to deal with the navigation Of the up
per air. BY determining the motions and
velocities Of clouds Of known heights.
Prof. Bigelow, of course. discovered the
motions and velocities of air currents of
the same level.
| HIGH CLOUDS RAPID.
| IorhapS the most interesting Of his dis
coveries is that while the average veloc-
ity OF the wind at ground level is but
| twelve miles an hour, that of the highest
clouds varies from seventy-five to ninety
| miles an hour. In other words man
| drifting with the wind in a balloon or
air ship would skim a few feet from the
| ground over the earth's surface at q
speed averaging only one-fifth that of a
mile minute express, but If simply drift
Ing again in the highest cloud zone, six
TO eight miles up, his speed might be q
half again as great as the same express.
Another interesting discovery is that
clouds travel faster through aerial re.
gions or low pressure than they dc
through those Of high pressure. Still
another is that the direction of the mo-
ton of this rapidly rushing current in the
region Of the highest clouds is, as dis
| covered at each station, due eastward
across the United States. Caught In thi:
rapid drift, an airship would continue tt
circumnav1gate the globe, so long as i
remained in the upper air This fact Il
proven not only by his cloud statistics
Prof. Bigelow says but by the fact tina
the fine ahes emitted to a height Of per
maps SLY miles by the terrific explosion
OF the japanese volcano Krakatoa con
tinued around the earth for severa
years, making hundreds of JOURNEYS al
together and causing numerous phenom
! email sunset effects seen at the time Th
motion of the clouds about us therefor
show that 1t would be possible to make a.,
aerial journey from the Pacific coast +
, the Atlantic by simply remaining in tn
drift OF the upper air, but the method O
returning would be serious problem I'M
less span around the earth were con,
pleted or unless some powerful machin
could be built to face normal torrent O
air three times as swift as the avera q
, tornado as felt at ground level. Will
this natural drift Of the higher air /
eastward, Prof Bigelow finds that 1t
at the same time slightly sinuous O
serpentine. The lower cloud layer furth
. er show that as the earth's surface
approached the movement becomes sti
! more serpentine until within mile an
half of us when eddies begin to form
J Descending further these eddies take u
a motion almost circular, moving abou
great worthless 1900 to 1000 miles In diane
!. ter, which are found to correspond (
the areas marked highs" and lows
( upon our daily weather maps
MILE AND A HALF HIGH.
/ The survey has also shown that storr
! actions of the wind are confined to the re
! gion of the low clouds, within two or tw
! and a half miles of us. The most rapi
storm motion is in the region of tn
, chains of ball-like "strato-cumulus
clouds which undulate the sky at heigh
Of a mile and a half. Above and belo,
| them it falls off, so far as storms ar
: concerned. But reports received from til
fourteen scattered observation station
when put together indicate, according t
Prof. Bigelow, that while the winds dow
here are changing and sweeping aroun
to form these great storm worthless til