Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-10-25
FAIR WANDERERS.
A Professor Who Asks What Building Ferris Wheel Is Tn.


 St Louis, Oct 25.-As we emerged from the Japanese section of the Va ried Industries building where Jane had been pricing $4OO cloisonne vases, $750 screens and. other inexpensive trinkets, we ran into long-haired in- dividual who wore spectacles and look ed as though he might be professor in German university. He inquired: ::
 Can you tell me in what building Il will find the Ferris wheel? I looked all through Machinery hall without finding it and suppose it must be in here somewhere'
 We explained to him that the only Ferris wheel we knew anything about stood up wonder on a hill near the Jap- anese pavilion and was much too large to be put into a building. John thinks the professor was one of those s'per- petual motion cranks'' who imagines the Ferris wheel has solved the prob lem.
 Speaking of professors, notice that in Germany when a man makes fine piece of furniture or creates a beauti- ful and artistic combination in domes- tic decoration he is called a 1sprofes- 4sor.' Many of the arts and crafts ex- hibits from Germany, for instance, are by the professors of Darmstadt. I notice that grand prize has been awarded Professor Alfred Grenander's "sitting-roonl' from Berlin. Imagine an American professor" exhibiting q sitting room mt the fair. In this coun- try the men who teach the dead and useless languages are called .sprofes- sors."
 John got so weary of viewing what. he calls "still exhibits the other day that we had to hunt up some novel outdoor amusement for nin1 and we found it in the kite-fying contest which took place in the Stadium and in that portion of the fair around the Stadium. Jane said it looked ridicu- lons to see a lot of full grown men ap- parently playing with a large assort- ment of variously shaped kites, but of course she didn't see the scientific as- pect of it all. They were not flying the kind that John rigged up iIl his bCyood days with a few sticks and a newspaper and long tail manufac- tured from the contents of the family g-bag.
 The kite-f1ying that is going on here Is not boys play but scientific con- test, and if you talked with Major B. Baden Powell, of the British army, you would learn that kite flying is very likely. to become very important fac- tor in the military operations of the future, finally taking the place of the war balloon. 8 This is not the Baden-POwell who commanded the British troops at Mafe- king in the Boer war, but his brother. This particular Baden-P Powell runs two kites. He is major in the British army and it was while experimenting with a war balloon at Aldershot that he conceived the notion of using kites instead of balloons from which to view the operations of the enemy. The bal loon was dangerous and cumbersome,
 Tn flying kites fine steel wire is used and it is unwound from large wooden reels or winches. There are 800-fOot. contests and the man who gets his kite-wire nearest to perpendicular is 2 most apt to capture first prize. The contests are not only interesting from a scientific point of view, but illus trate the efforts of the exposition man. agement to provide novel, and pictur- esque outdoor diversion for worlds fair visitors.