Omaha daily bee., 1911-11-12
Copyrighted 1911 by Frank C. c

- CUNT WEATHER, Loudoun
AA County, Val am on the
]" top OF the Blue Ridge noun
.gpzpEss& talns. 1000 feet above the level
Ks<SSYHN OF the Potomac, at the foot
SElss5szS OF the George Washington
monument, just about sixty miles from
our national capital This morning the
Shenandoah valley was great sea of
clouds and the Loudoun valley on the
opposite side was covered with mist as
with n blanket. A little later the clouds
rose and in billowy waves seemed to come
to our feet. Yesterday there was a storm
and we could see It marching across the
valley OF Virginia. Today everything is
clear and we shall fly some of Uncle
Sans weather kites to test the velocity
OF, the wind the humidity of the atmos-
phere and the temperature and other
qualities of the upper air. This is Uncle
Sans great weather experiment station.
He has moro than 200 other places at
which corps of scientists sit day and
night watching the storms and calms
and predicting what the next days
weather will he. Mount Weather Is
purely experimental. It's business is to
find out new things about the great en-
velope called the atmosphere which is
wrapped around the globe. 1t is doing
this with ell kinds of the finest of
meteorological machinery. 1t tests the
changing temperature of the bowels of
the earth, and scars into the clouds with
automatic instruments to bring down
the records of the heavens.
Uncle Sam, Kite Flyer.
II seems small for our great Uncle Sam
to devote his valuable time to kite flying
but our patriarchal relative does that
every day He is fonder of kites than
Chinese mandarin, and he has great
laboratories filled with the finest of box
shaped monsters which he sends daily
toward the skies. He is not alone in the
business. There are other great nations
which do the same. Germany has It's
kite experiments, and so have France and
other countries. OF all the world, how
ever, Uncle Sans kites have reached
nearest heaven. He has the record as a
high flyer. In April and May, 1910, he
sent two kites each OF which went higher
than the topmost peak of this hemisphere.
| The highest of our mountains are In
South America and the loftiest of all Is
Aconcagua, which kisses the sky at the
altitude OF $50 feet. The highest noun
tain in North America is Mount Mckin-
| ley, which is a little more than 2OOOO
feet above the sea. Uncle Sans highest
| kite has reached a height of $500 feet
and his next highest was 23,lOO Next
| to these flights the most successful has
been one near Berlin, where in 1903 a
kite was sent to a height of el,S0 feet
and next to that was a flight at Blue Hin,
near Boston, where the kite extended
| only 1880 feet above the earth. Twen-
! ty-three thousand eight hundred feet Is
| considerably over four miles, and II is
about a half mile higher than the top OF
Mount MIST in Peru, where is situated
the highest of all recording weather sta
tions. That station belongs to Harvard
| college, and II is connected with the
great observatory at Arequipa, which lies
on the sides OF the Andes 1900 or N,OOO
feet below. MIST is so high that no
one lives there, but automatic instru-
ments are placed on the top Of the noun
tain and from time to time are visited
and the records carried away.
Flying weather bureaus.
These kites OF Uncle Sam are flying
weather bureaus. They float on the
wings of the winds and explore the
atmosphere at a point so far from the
earth that a man could hardly go there
and come back TO tell the tale. The
head kite Is equipped with automatic
recorders. 1t has machines which note
the temperature, humidity and other
atmospheric conditions. 1t has fOun-
lain pen which writes down the velocity
OF the wind which blows IT to and fro,
and It is equipped with other instru-
ments so fine and 20 complicated and
yet SO efficient that they make one
think OF a great flying brain which Uncle
sam has sent aloft TO explore. This
brain Is kept in an aluminium box which
might be called its skull, and which is
so protected that when the kite falls
II is not destroyed.
1 made a careful examination OF one
OF these kite skulls today a nd wa:
amazed at its workmanship. The instru
ment which tests the humidity is a hu
man hair. Not a hair as coarse as thai
Of an Indians, but as fine and silky as
that Of a baby. In fact, II is the hall
, Of a womans head, and one selected FOL
! its fineness and strength The hair II
J so treated that all the oil Is taken ou
ture by its expansion and contraction
When II strikes a rain cloud II loosenl
and when IL reaches the dry uppel
strata II becomes taut.
And then take the thermometer. Thii
works also by expansion and contrac
tfon. It is little metal bowl with 4
LIQUID inside and that OF such a natur,