The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1920-07-20
UP IN THE AIR
What The Scientists Have Learned About
The Higher Attitudes.
From the North American Review.

We know that the temperature falls rapidly
with ascent-about one degree for each 300
feet-until the top of the storm level is
reached at seven miles, when most wonder
full thing ensues; the thermometer no longer
falls as the balloon rises; it remains practi-
cally stationary so far as exploration has
been made, which is to the height of over
nineteen miles.
We have named this region above the
storms the Isothermal equally heated) re-
gion. It's temperature everywhere is about
60 degrees fahrenheit below zero and it
changes only about degrees between win
er and summer. Of course one must assume
hat ultimately the temperature shades away
10 practically nothing as outer space is reach
ed. Outside of the earth's atmosphere-the
oxygen of which ceases at about thirty miles,
The nitrogen at fifty and the hydrogen and
lelium at about two hundred miles-there is
total darkness even at midday, and little or
10 temperature-over 400 degrees below zero
in the intensity of its cold
Observations show anomalies that are start
ling. At one and one-half miles high there
is little difference between midday and mid
night, except that the- coolest time of the
twenty -four hours is during the daytime and
not at night as would be most naturally sup
posed. This is important information to any
aviator or to the pilot of a balloon. AS pre-
viously stated at the height of only 1000
IeSL III Tree dir dt IIl6 lIOlCSSL GlIIlC VI 1illN
summers heat the air is found to lose as
much as Is degrees in comparison with that
of the ground. Almost within arms length
of the streets of great inland cities there is
cool and healthful atmosphere when hu-
mainly is sweltering and dying from heat
below. May not several Eiffel towers for
each sanitarium some day sustain them far
above the tallest sky-scrapers of the pres
ent 1000 or 1000 feet high?
AT tho haiUht Of tpn miles If would be diff
ficalt to hear the human voice because of the
attenuated medium of transmission, and the
| twilight would deepen, even though 1T were
midday. At thirty miles there would be no
oxygen, ones voice could not be heard at all,
and the stars would come out and darkness
ensue although it were bright sunlight be-
low The nitrogen would cease at about fifty
miles.
| The traveller in the upper levels can carry
oxygen and make air as he needs it, and he
can insulate himself against the cold of this
new world, which he will find deficient in
dust notes and doubtless entirely wanting In
| the bacteria of putrefaction and disease.
There will be no clouds to obscure his vision,
or>rain, nor snow. He will not often ascend
above the region where there are not some
dust notes to scatter and diffuse a part of
the solar rays and give him light, or at least
partial illumination. Above the nitrogen
there are only the hydrogen and the heium,
| one TWO llSHIeSG VI dll gases 1HCoC illeihC
! themselves manifest as far out as two hum
dred miles from the earth in their warming
effects on meteors that shoot into them and
become luminous by the heat of friction.
The darkness of outer space may be proven
by taking an enclosed volume of air, free it of
dust notes, of which there are millions per
cubic centimeter, and then try to illuminate
it, and it will be found that no matter how
powerful the light that is directed into it it
remains wholly dark. When one looks up at
midday he apparently sees the whole universe
| illuminated; but in point of fact only the
thin stratum of the earths air in which he
lives is Illuminated Outer space is practi-
cally without temperature or light. The rays
of the sun do not become either light, or
heat, or electricity until they encounter the
denser molecules of the air near the earth
and the invisible dust notes and cloud parti-
cles in suspension in the air, and through
such interference are transmitted from
etherc vibrations into other forms of energy
heat, light, electricity. etc.