Palatka daily news. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1919-1994, 1922-01-03
"TOPOF WORLD"
so M|LESAWAY
Writer Gives Some Interesting
Facts in Connection With
Recent Aviation Feats.
or LITTLE SCIENTIFIC VALUE
Attempts to Go Higher Than Mac
Readys Record Breaking Flight
Would Not Be Productive OF
Worthwhile Results.

Washlngton.--The "top Of the world
still waits to be reached. Lieutenant
MacReady's record-breaking fly to q
height of nearly eight miles left the
scaling OF the earth" still at least
forty miles away.
How near the aviator may come 10
what is practically the upper limit OF
the atmospheric layer surrounding the
earth we may not know In this genera
tion. But the meteorologist and the
astronomer tell us that both Major
Schroeder after his flight Of 3s,lso
feet and Lieutenant MacReady after
his 40s00 were speaking only figura-
lively when they spoke OF having at
tanned the "top Of the earth"
Layer Fifty Miles Thick.
The layer of atmosphere, many say
is at least fifty miles thick.
Ayiators now have the means OF
taking sufficient oxygen along WIN
them for their engines and for them-
selves. and the heat that keeps their
bodies from freezing. They lack only
denser air to fly upon at great heights
But this, of course, they will never
have.
Yet there Is another solution: Inc
faster plane capable Of rising still
higher on an ever-thinning ocean OF
air.
1t will be problem forever increas'
ingly difficult. The higher man rises
the thinner will he find the air upon
which he must depend for buoyancy.
Indeed the air gets thinner even II
greater proportion than the increased
height of the flight. For though Mac
Ready had risen through but one-sixtf
Of the air cushion that cloaks TN
earth. he had left behind him four
fifths Of the air.
From the surface Of the earth
where the total pressure upon his bod,
was fifteen tons. he had risen to
height where the pressure was bu
three tons. And had he gone thre
times as high he would have reduce
the pressure to so pounds.
ANY higher sirplane flights tina
those that have been taken by thes
two men will have little scientif
value. Their observations Will CIV
scarcely more information than that
he had from a balloon sent up wit
various pieces of recording apparatu
No Interest at Poles.
But neither did the poles of Il
earth have great scientific interes
, Yet men sought and attained ther
And so long as the astronomer and Il
meteorological make known the exls
epce of an ocean of air beyond al
sailed thus far, there will be a stru
gle to fathom its depth.
Rut for the present that fathomil
VII he done only from observation al
dy.,.rtion to be made upon terra hrm
Air,ur the best of the methods tn
an, l;sad to determine the upper lin
Of lie blanket of air about the ear
is called the twilight method
Twilight has been defined as Z
time after sunset when day seems
he roEtinped into the night because
tre suu"ght that still shines upon t
upper air.
1t has been determined that ty
light lasts until the sun is abo
eighteen degrees below the horlz'
and with this as a known value a
the radius Of the earth given as Az
miles. it is not difficult to solve, by t
methods Of trigonometry, a right
angle that gives 4S miles as the hei2
OF the air still dense enough to reti'
the twilight rays of the sun after
has set.
On the other hand. another metl
gives different result. The presel
of Shooting stars" in these fall nigl
calculated often to be at a height
200 miles. would seem to indicate Il
there must be air even AT that heig
for il is the friction of the air t
heats the meteor as it PUSHES tow
The earth.-Chester E. Tucker, in [
cago Post.
Hen Fasts Many Days.