Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-09-29
Kite Flying in Wet Weather.

4't.t' W AZ NC iliSNsllAth a4@AO
at Mount Weather.
Kite Flying in Wet Weather
In company with Prof Moore. chief ~ tho
weather bureau. l watched the flying of ono
of the large box kites which are sent I'D TO
a height of several miles above the earth
to get records of the air The kite. which
Is about ten feet in length, Is made OF two
boxes, containing square cells upon a
wooden framework fastened together nv
wires. Tied upon IT was one Of the record
ing instruments which l have already de-
scribed.
The kite was sent TN from, ~, ra,.o,,,ro
kite house. This is about thirty feet high
and 1t looks for all the world Ike a Dutch
Windmill without the arms The whole
slce or IL can he opened. and il Is arranged
so that ii can he turned around Ia have
the door in the proper wind direction for
flying the kite. The kites are sent up fast
ened to a steel wire as fine as a piar,
stflnE and so strong that a single strand of
II viii support 200 pounds. Notw outstanding
TINS IL Is not as thick as a Garuing needle
me Kites are reelc5 and unreelci hy means
OF an electric motor and | was tali tE.ra
We're four miles of wire on the reel toaav
when the kite was let out. 1t ascsnded
10 distance OF perhaps a milo and a
mar. Al the present time kites are flown
on the first Thursday of every month at
a large number of weather stations IN Gif-
ferent parts Of the world ana the records
or the upper air thus gotten viii he sent
'-'l' ipt SfltillIt study ana deduction
Not long ago I visited the Harvard OH
servatory at Arequipa, Peru. That instl-
tuition is situated in the Andes at about n
mile and n half above the sel. and IL has
IN ADDITION recording station with
automatic Instruments on mo ton or
Mount MIST. which is almost four miles
Mgh- by means of thes. kites orr weather
sG,eHtists VIII be aple 10 make records OF
All the conditions Of the atmusphere
Straight up in the air as high above Mount
weather and higher than the highest Iar-
Fard instruments in Peru. and that not
only here but at other places tbvouubo,t
the United States. Indeed. tho arrsnfyae
ments at this station for STUDYING weather
phenomena. both on the earth and ahova
ii, are not surn,ssad .nyyi,, 80
world. ~ NV
Temperature Below Ground.
AS walked with Chief Moore about tho
grounds at Mount Weather. he mentioned
some of his plans for future EXPERIMENTS
Said he:
We want to investigate the changes Of
temperature below the carihs surface I'm
order to study them in relation 10 the
changes In the air above You know
that after one goes down shor,
distance the earth becomes rari,Ily warmer
The increase is one degree for every forty
or fifty feet You soon reach n point al
which one could boil eggs. and down thirty
miles or 50 come TO q heat great enough Tn
reduce everything to a molten mass vera
it not affected by other forces We .x-
pect to bore wells one hundred. TWO hun
dred or three hundred feet deep here on
top of the mountain. and il may lie also
in the Loudoun valley, twelve hundred feet
below. We shall place automatic record
ing thermometers. ten feet apart or less
ell the way down to the bottom Of such n
well. and will have arrangements by which
we can know the changes at each depth. at
all times"
observations CT the Sun
VIII you make much study of the suns
heat"
I'VE shall use the bolometer and various
forms of the perhyleometer for measuring
the quantity of heat received from the sun
as distinct from the temperature az the air.
We expect to make apparatus for NOR. ex-
actiy registering the beginning and ending
of precipitation. DIR. Oliver l.. Fass e Who
has charge OF our upper air experiments
has partly worked out device FOR this pur-
pose. We are also studying low To better
record the lightning. and. I'm short are
making a large number of Investigations
which are practical as we'll as scientific"
Eighty-Eight Per Cent Correct.
The conversation here turned to the pres
ent efficiency of the weather bureau. and