164 MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW. APRIL, 1897
ent in the arctic regions from that which prevails in more moderate latitudes; but it serves fully to prove the impossibilit of forming an hypothesis respecting the constitution of the atmosplere which aha8 be univereally correct.
Following the above Dr. Young gives some notes as to the effect of a change of a degree Fahrenheit on the astronomical refraction.
Shortly after this time, viz, in the Edinburgh Journal of Science, 1827, Vol. VI, page 246, Sir Thomas Brisbane quotes Fisher’s experiments and Dr. Young’s remarks in connection with observations made at Port Macquarie, Van Diemens Land, in June, 1824, at an upper and lower station, for the purpose of determining the decrease of temperature with alti- tude. In the Edinburgh Journal for January, 1827, Vol. VI, p. 146,
Brewster, as editor, commenting on the hourly observations proposed by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, used the following words :
To those meteorologists who have sufficient leisure and the means of performing such experiments we would recommend the use of kites or of balloonsfor ascertainin &e temperature and state of the upper atmosphere. The Earl of %into has obtained several very interestmg results by the use of balloons.
The observations by the Earl of Minto here referred to were given in the subsequent volume, page 248, where it appears that small captive balloons were used up to a height of 1,340 feet. An observer ascended with the balloon; the height was varied frequently by letting out or pulling in the line. The rise of temperature after sunset a t the upper station was well established.
Another account of the experiment by Rev. George Fisher is given at page 187 of the volume of scientific memoirs pub- lished at London, 1826, as the Appendix to Captain Parry’s Journal of the Second Voyage for the Discovery of the North-
west Passage. In the Appendix No. 2, on Atmospheric Refrac- tion, on page 187, Mr. Fisher says:
I t appears by an experiment that when the sea is covered with ice in the winter there is no sensible dzerence between the tem eratures of the atmosphere at the surface of the ice and at the heigit of 400 feet above it. This was tried by means of a paper kite with an excel- lent register thermometer attached to it, the altitude of which was de- termined by two diiTerent observers at the time, at a iven distance from each other and in the same vertical plane as the &e and from which the per ndicular height of the kite above the levef of the ice was computed? This expenment was tried under favorable circum- stances at a temperature of -24’ F. The kite was sent up and caught in coming down without the thermometer being in the least disturbed, the indices of which did not show the slightest alteration although carefully c o m r d before and after thme expeTimenta and the kite remained at
There is nothing to show the special date on which this experiment was made, but it may be safely assumed to have been in February or March, 1823. Whether the upper tem- perature Wae lower or higher than that near the earth’e sur- face would h&e been shown by Mr. Fishef’k thermometer, since
it appears to have been a self-registering Six thermometer in an iron case, whose two indices would respectively show the maximum and the minimum that occurred during each experiment. Of coarse the iron case or inclosure which pro- tected this thermometer from accident also greatly increased
its sluggishness from a thermometric point of view, and as
the thermometer remained a t its highest altitude only five or ten minutes, it could not be expected to settle a question of
a difference of less than 6 O F.
-
e same height in the air for a considerable time.
The preceding investigations seem to the Editor to have all been suggested by the active discussion that was in those days going on as to the formula for refraction in the atmosphere, in whioh Dr. Thomas Young and Mr. Ivory took a prominent
part.
aRcgIBALD ON-.
A little book has just been published in London, entitled The Story of the Earth’s Atmosphere, by Douglas Archibald. This volume contains a very readable, popular account of the general composition, temperature, and circulation of the at- mosphere, written by one who has himself contributed some- thing to the progress of meteorology. From Chapter XI11 we quote the following. After some remarks on balloons and flying machines, Mr. Archibald says :
When a plane surface is forced through the air, the upward pressure of the air is mostly concentrated near ita front edge. If the surf- extended far back from the edge, its weight would act at some distance from the front edge. Consequently the unbalanced pressure of the air
would tend to turn the plane over Lackwards. If, however, ita width were small, the weight would act so close to where the resistance acta in the op osite direction that the forces would neutralize each other and stabiity ensue. Mr. Hargrave has ado ted this rinciple in his cellular or box kite, whose construction is su&ciently o&vious to render detailed deacription unnecessary. The dimensions are as follows: The length of each cell (from right to left) is 30 inches and the width and height and o ening between are about 11 inches; but these dimensions may vary so gng as the two cella together form a nearly square area. rtant feature of this ecu- liar, tailless kite consists of the covered-in Bigs. These ensure stafility even better than two planes bent u ward in V shape such as the wings of the kestrel when hovering, and tEey prevent the Ate from upsetting, ve g r . Maxim once showed the advantage of such side lanes b a
simple ex eriment in which a piece of paper, when held gorizonta%y and let fA to the floor, is seen to execute a series of zigzags in the air, frequently ending in ita complete overthrow; whereas when the same fece of paper .is folded up round the ed ea like a boat, it sails to the oor quite evenly and in a straight line. * The kiu was first invented b the Chinese General Han Sin in 208 B. C., for use in war, and was geeguently employed after that date in China by the inhabitants of a besieged town to communicate with the outside world. After this kites appear to have degenerated into mere toys. At the middle of the present century, however, Pocock of Bristol emplo ed them to draw carriages, and is said to have traveled from Bnstor to London in a carriage drawn by kitew The were also occa-
sionally employed to measure the temperature of tze u per air, by Admiral Back, on the Tsrpm, and Mr. Birt, at Kew, in ld’. These observations had been quite forgotten when the author 6mt su eated the employment of kites for s stematic observations in 1883.
I t f a a since been discovered that Dr. dlson,.of Glaagow, ty lo ago aa 1749, resuscitated kites from their long bwal with a slmilar %,a of emplo ing them to measure temperature. In tKe author’s experirnenta, steel wire was firat employed to fl them with. Two kites of diamond pattern, made of tuesore silk an8 bamboo frames, were flown tandem, and four self-recording Biram anemometers, weighin 1J pounds each, were attached at various@nta up the wire. Heights from 200 to 1,500 feet were reached by the im-
ments, and the increase of the avera motion of the atmosphere was measured on several occasions for trree years. Kitee were ale0 em- ployed first, by the author, in 1887, to photogra h objects below by means of a camera attached to the kite wire, the &utter being released by explosion. Since that time kite photogra h has lea t into popu- larity and has been successful1 practmed b 8. iatut, in hance, Capt. Baden Powell, in England an1 Eddy, in &w Jerse * * It was further suggested by the author, in 1888 &es Ceria Volanta Militairen. Bibliothhque des Connaissances Militairen. Paris, 1888.), that kites could be used for various urpoaes in war as well as science. Since then Capt. Baden Powell, in Bda ,1895, read a paper on “ Kites, their uses in War.” In both these pubfications it was pointed out that kites possessed several distinct advantages over balloons; next, that they could be applied to all the purposes for which balloons could be employed, such as signalling, photography, torpedo rojection, carry- ing despatches between vessels, and, lastly, they mu& be employed to raise a man for purposes of reconnaissance.
B E F I m U Y OF WINDMITLS.
In his Story of the Earth’s Atmosphere, Mr. Douglas Archi- bald, says:
It is estimated that there are more than a million windmills in the United States alone. The useful efficiency of windmills, eepecially in the modem geared form, is comparable with that of the best simple 3team engines. A geared modem wheel, 20 feat in diameter, will .develop &horse power in an 18 mile an hour breeze, and can be applied to work agri- mltural machineynd dynamos for electric lightmg. With a single wheel of this size r. McQeeeten, of Marblehead Neck, Mass., U. 8,
An im
much as the sides of a ship give it stability.
APRIL, 1897. MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW. 166
A., works an installation of 137 electric lighta, for which he formerly used a steam engine; as a result he finds that he effeecte a saving of more than60 r cent. A w x n toLord Kelvin, wind still sup lies a large. part of the energy use3 by man. Out of 40,OOO of the gritish shipping, 30,000 are sailing ship, and as coal geta scarcer “ wind will do man s work on land, at least in proportion comparable to its present doing of work at sea, and windmills or wind motors will again be in the ascendant.”
-IN KITEI a U B AND J-8 SW-.
In the American Journal of Science for 1837, Vol. XXXII, pp. 304-307, there is an article by James Swaim (b. 1816, d,
1877), describing some observations by himself, made Octo. ber and November, 1836, for the purpose of determiningdaily the height of that layer of electrified air ‘L whose positive electxicitywas concentrated enough to expand the leaves of
the electrometer.” Such measurements would of course de. termine the height of a layer having a constant difference of
potential with regard to the earth’s surface at the lower end of the wire. Mr. Swaim used a kite and apparatus which hc describes as follows :
The preceding experiments were made with common three-stich kites, two feet SIX inches lon and two feet four inches wide, taperin from the middle to. the top. %ire No. 30 was used, which w y wound on a red four feet in cmcumference, havmg a @ass axle running on B
frame about three feet h’ h which was made in the same manner as
the one used by the Frazlii Kite Club of Philadelphia. An electrometer was connected with an iron rin through which the wirepaesed, and which was suspended by means 01 silk in front of the reel or the purpose of preventmg the wire from running off in wind. in up rapidly.
~
the height of the kite, which I constructed m the following manne%wo stahonary arms of diffep ent lengths were laced at right angles. The longer of these wae eraduated into am& eauidiatant divisions. A movable arm. which
%BO an inepment was Fed for fin
3 a s p u a t e d in the same manner, was attached to the short &m, intt whi was let a level. This instrument was attached to the front 01
the reel stand by means of a screw, on which it could move.
The height of t.he kite was found by means of a simple pro.
portion. Mr. Swaim also publishes the meteorological ob. servations made by him at the surface of the earth, concern.
ing which he says :
The dew- int was found from the following formula, discovered by Mr. Eap : E k e two thermometers (Fahrenheit) that agree, or allow for the cherence; cover one of the bulbs with a wet rag and suspend them in the shade where there is a draft of air, or fan them briskly until they become stationary. Then the difference of the thermqme. ters being multiplied by one hundred and three, the product divided by the number of degrees indicated by the wet bulb, and the quotient subtracted from the number of those indicated by the dry one, will give the dew-point.
From the above we infer that wire was used both by the
Franklin Kite Club before 1836, and by Mr. Swaim in that year. The “three-stick kites” described by him are some- times called “ house kites,” and have the form of an irregular but symmetrical hexagon. The reference to Espy’s use of the “whirled psychrometer ”
is important as confirming the conclusion long since pub-
lished by the Editor, that Espy was the first who practiced
this use of the instrument.
KlTElS IN AMEFUUA AND EUROPE.
The active meteorologists of to-day with their abundance
of scientific periodicals do not easily realize the difficulties under which our ancestors labored a century ago. Before the
establishment of Silliman’s American Journal of Science,
1818, and the Franklin Journal, or the Journal of the Franklin Institute by Dr. Jones in 1826, Americans necessarily looked
to England and France for the records of the progress of soience. The journals that were most widely circulated among us were Tilloch’s Philosophical Magazine, Nicholson’s Journal of Natural Philosophy, Phillip’s Annals of Philosophy, Brewster’s Edinburgh Journal of Science, and Young’s Quar-
terly Journal of Science, and in these we must search, not only for American contributions, but also for the articles that stimulated American workers and the ideas that were prevalent among them. The modern application of the kite to meteorological work illustrates very prettily this inter-
change of ideas between Great Britain and America. Franklin and his electric kite of 1748 were but tales of the past when, in 1825, the memoir of Prof. Alexander Wilson (which had lain neglected for thirty-six years among the papers of his son, Prof. Patrick Wilson) was published in the Transactions
of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and almost at the same time was largely reprinted in Thornson’s Annals of Philosophy for November, 1826 (apparently the last volume before the Annals.mere united with the Philosophical Magazine). An abstract of this paper was published, as promptly as possible in the Franklin Journal for March, 1827, Vol. 111, p. 182,
and must have at once falleu into the hands of Espy, who was at that time studying meteorological matters. About this time, also, he must have read Fisher’s article in the Quarterly Journal for 1826, and soon began his own experi-
ments with kites. He must, also, have seen Harvey’s article in the Encyclopedia Metropolitana in 1834, as that encyclo-
pedia was widely circulated in the United S t a t k Espy’s theories as to atmospheric currents and storms, the tempera- ture of the air, and the formation and heights of clouds, supported as they were by his own observations with kites and those of the Franklin Kite Club, excited much attention in Europe between 1836 and 1846. The discussions on his theories preceded, if they did not directly lead to, the attempt of Birt and Ronalds in 1847 at the Kew Observatory todeter- mine the real condition of the atmosphere above us as to temperature and moisture. Their experiments were given up as unsatisfactory and the kite seems to have been aban- doned-if I may except some obeervations of my own in 1867
at Washington and 1876 at Atlantic City and those of Van Rysselbergh in Belgium in $38O-until Archibald began his valuable work in England in November, 1883. The scanty use made of the kite during this interval resulted very largely from the fact that the balloon had absorbed attention and, indeed, seemed at first to offer all the facilities needed for
the exploration of the upper air. Afterwards balloon work was supplemented by the establishment of mountain stations, beginning with Mount Washington, 1870, and Pikes Peak,
1873. But the progress of dynamic meteorology had shown the need of regular observations from stations that are more perfectly isolated from terrestrial influences than is possible
on a mountain top. The Eifel tower seemed to perfectly respond to our needs, but such towers are expensive and rare.
A few isolated investigations by no means respond to the needs of dynamic meteorology. The work done with balloons, kites, and mountain stations was reviewed in my lectures of
1882-85, showing that we must have maps of the upper isobars, isotherms, and winds and, to this end, must increase the number of our mountain stations and stimulate the use of balloons. In June, 1886, Mr. McAdie used kites to study atmospheric electricity at Blue Hill in extension of his
studies under Professor Trowbridge at Cambridge. In my official estimates of July, 1886, and September, 1886, respec- tively, I included “kites, wire, reels, and sextant for the study
3f wind pressure” and, again, “kites, etc., for the study of temperature and wind at moderate elevations,” as supple- mentary to balloons and mountain stations. But the im- portant stimulus was given to this kite work by Eddy at Bayonne, N. J., in 1890, and just at this opportune moment Hargarve, in 1893, at Sydney, Australia, contributed to the progress of science his unique and valuable cellular kite, a
Full account of which was read at the Columbian Exposition, Zhicago, 1893. Since then Eddy’s work has been carried Corward at Blue Hill by Mr. Rotch and his assistants, while