Rural School Leaflet. 



919 



and they said it wasent a Electric Bloon and that they never sent up 

 any kind of a Bloon with out some one went with it. 



Pleas write and tell me weather they do send up Electric Bloons 

 or not and tell me weather any one goes with them or not. 



Yours truly, 



Ivan Sawyer 



Ivan was interested enough to ask for information. The reply sent 

 to him from the office of the Weather Bureau at Ithaca was as follows: 



Mr. Ivan Sawyer, 



Ischua, N. Y. 



Dear Friend: 



Your letter asking about the 

 balloon has been handed to me 

 by Miss McCloskey with the 

 request that I should answer 

 it as the Weather Bureau is 

 somewhat interested in bal- 

 loons. Our people at Mount 

 Weather, Virginia, have sent 

 up what are called captive bal- 

 loons and kites for the pur- 

 pose of ascertaining some facts 

 about the air far above the 

 earth's surface, especially its 

 temperature. Other persons too 

 have made use of the captive 

 balloons, experimenting with 

 different gases to find which 

 would give the best results with 

 balloons of various materials. These balloons, you will no doubt be 

 interested to learn, are sent up without any person going along: they 

 are too small to carry the weight of [a man. Such a balloon might 

 have some kind of light suspended from it so that it could be watched 

 at night, but I cannot be sure whether this is what you saw or not. 



Yours truly, 



Wilfred M. Wilson, 



Section Director 



Fig. 25. — The locust tree. To what family 

 does it belong ? 



