48 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Professor Baiitz makes no claim to originality in his views, but 

 merely gives a general exposition of the opinions held by many 

 fathers of the Church and the great majority of mediaeval theologi- 

 ans. Tertullian and other patristic authorities believed volcanic erup- 

 tions to be the outbursts of hell fire, and in the middle ages Hecla 

 was regarded with peculiar awe as one of the principal vent-holes of 

 the infernal regions. The queer thing is that such antiquated and 

 childish notions should be revived and taught in a German seminary 

 of learning in the last decade of the nineteenth century. 



KITE-FLYING IN" 1897. 



By GEORGE J. VARNEY. 



OiSTE of the most noticeable movements of the present time in 

 popular science is kite-flying, while its practice as a pastime is 

 having a large increase. Its interest to our reader, however, is 

 almost wholly in its scientific aspect. 



To the question, AVhat is really the use of all this practice with 

 kites '( Mr. H. H. Clayton, superintendent at Blue Hill Observatory 

 (in the suburbs of Boston), once replied nearly as follows: " We are 

 living in an atmosphere of which we practically know very little. 

 Our position is like that of crabs at the bottom of the sea. It is 

 expected that such knowledge will be gained in these aerial explora- 

 tions as will enable the meteorologist to predict hot and cold waves 

 and the various kinds of storms more accurately and much earlier 

 than has been done heretofore. The observations have already 

 become serviceable in this direction, while the knowledge gained 

 has modified opinions found in the text-books." 



Truly there are moimtain tops three, four, and nearly six miles 

 high, but these are remote or inacessible; besides, the atmosphere 

 enveloping them is mainly of the same stratum which rests upon 

 the surface of the earth elsewhere, only a little rarefied, chilled, and 

 broken in upon slightly in storms, when the stratum is shallow, by 

 the more rapidly flowing stratum next above; so that usually what 

 may be found on the mountain peaks is merely the crest of a billow 

 of the lower atmosphere. 



nicious character of their theological training, involving the sacrifice of the intellect to the 

 dictates of ecclesiastical authority. In this connection he refers to the " revelations of Miss 

 Diana Vaughan," and the credulity with which they were received by the clergy, as a recent 

 illustration of the results of such teaching. The ease with which the representatives of the 

 Romish hierarchy, from the infallible Pope and his cardinals down to the humblest country 

 vicar, fell into the snare laid by Leo Taxil and his confederate?, ought to serve as a serious 

 warning and lead to educational reform. 



