The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1912-07-17

tons make simultaneous observations
once a month with sounding balloons
and the records are sent to strasburs
and the results published. The Oh
servations in America are made by
the weather bureau on Blue Ridge.
Va, and on Blue Hill. Mass. The
balloons are made of sheet rubber and
filled with hydrogen gas. The scien-
tifie instruments n Ill are attached
to a small parachute, SO that when
the balloon bursts. as 1t nearly always
does, they will fall gradually. The
miles before they burst. but a large
percentage of the instruments and
records are recovered. each set being
accompanied with printed directions
for shipping them back to the station.
y small reward is paid the finder for
doing this.
Observations are also made with
kites. which have been made to fly to
a height of four miles.
For a long time scientists believed
the earth's atmosphere was only sixty
miles deep. Now they believe it is at
least 200 miles deep and that it ma
extend even beyond that.
The eruption of the volcano of
krakatoa gave to me~teorologists the
proof that at so miles above the eart1
the atmosphere was dense enough to
carry the fine dust thrown up by that
eruption and to hold it there for sew
eral years. This dust. in enormous
masses. was hurled up six " eight
miles, and there it was caught in the
hurricane of the second laver of air
and whirled away at velocities of 80
tc 200 miles an our until ii complete
ly surrounded the airth in "noctilu-
cent clouds" that reflected the sun
light. and those dust clouds gave us
the magnificent red sunsets that over
spread the entire sky over the whole
earth for several years after that vol
canic eruption.
Meteorites that fall singly and in
showers give scientists an opportunitS
TO form deductions about the upper
air. 1t is estimated that 10000, 900
of these enter the atmospheric ocean
every year. some of them being no
larger than a marble. and the greater
part of all of them unobserved and
lost to science.
They travel at the rate of forty-fve
miles a second and at the enormous
speeds the majority of them are con-
sumed by the heat generated by at
mospheric friction. Many large tons
fall to earth. sometimes exploding
with a great roar heard for fftS.
miles.
The largest meteor known to have
fallen in this country weighed twenty
tons. 1t was found buried in the
earth in Oregon. 1t was composed
entirely of iron and nickel. There is
nyoa in Cra1rJo~1 ard onNthor IN Nov
leo each weighing fifty tons.
Many meteorites have been found
in Kansas. They are very valuable
as scientific specimens ard farm mort
cages have been lifted. homes built
and money saved for old age from the
sale of meteorites found in that state.
The courts have decided that meteor
real estate" and property of the
owner of the land on which they fail.
In 1910 Svante A%rrhenius. a SWed-
ish scientist, suggested that life first
came to this earth in a dormant germ
carried by a meteorite. He estimated
that from Mars a meteorite would
come to earth in twenty days, from
Neptune in a year, and from Alpha.
the nearest star to the sun, 1t would
come in 5000 years.
Camille Flammarion, the great
ID oIIoIilSI, Sdlu TIA IL IlilSIl
be that these fragments Of other
worlds would pass through space with
a germ of life dormant until it found
a condition in another planet favor
able to its growth.
Science has solved within the last
two years the age-long mystery of the
Aurora, that awe-inspiring pageant of
light that paints the frozen wastes at
each end Of the earth and sends its
streamers far into the skies Of the
temperate zones. DR.. w. L. Dudley,
head Of tn department of chemistry
of Vanderbilt university in Nashville,
Tenn, has announced that the aurora
is due to the presence in the atmos-
phere of a very rare gaseous element
called neon, which has the property
of becoming luminous when acted
upon by magnetic discharges, whether
of earth currents or of streams OF
electric atoms. called ions, sent forth
by disturbances on the surface of the
sun.
The neon gas is condensed by the
cold near the poles and catch and
hold the magnetic streams. The
aurora results-just as when the vapor
Of mercury is condensed in a glass
tube and a current of electricity IL
run through it. luminosity follows.
Prof. Garrett P. Serviss asserts that
Prof. Dudley has found the true eX-
PLANTATION of the aurora.
In the last two a man. in aimsy
aeroplanes. has played leap frog over
~stupendous mountain ranges and has
hurdled rivers. He has mounted to
empyreal heights tina would have
taxed the powers OF the eagle or the
condor. There is something uncanny
in an exploit that carries a man up.
up. until he and his machine becomes
smaller and smaller until 1t melts
from sight in the blue of the heavens.
until he loses sight Of the earth Itself
and is lost in the silent solitudes of
the upper depths of the atmospheric
ocean and is left alone in the uni
verse 'twixt earth and sky.
And yet. he has mounted only to
| a little over 1--WE miles.
What Of the future?
The nations OF the world are trying
to answer that question.
Anyone will play with little chill.