1/2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [vOL. 45 



" A Determination of the Ratio of the Specific Heats at Constant 

 Pressure and at Constant Volume, for Air, Oxygen, Carbon-Dioxide 

 and Hydrogen." Permission was also granted to issue a German 

 edition of this memoir, and the investigation is to be further prose- 

 cuted under the direction of the Reichsanstalt. 



An interesting research under a Hodgkins grant has been con- 

 ducted by Mr. A. Lawrence Rotch, director of the Blue Hill 

 Meteorological Observatory, at Hyde Park, Massachusetts, for ex- 

 periments with automatic kites, to determine, by means of self- 

 recording instruments, meteorological data in atmospheric strata 

 inaccessible except by mechanical methods of exploring the atmos- 

 phere. The highest flight recorded during the experiments at Blue 

 Hill up to July, 1900, was 15,807 feet, or but a trifle less than 

 three miles, the kites carrying up with them meteorological instru- 

 ments which recorded the elevation, the wind pressure, the dew 

 point, and other facts of interest at the great altitude attained. 



In addition to this investigation, in the spring and summer of 1899 

 Mr. Rotch conducted a short series of experiments in wireless 

 telegraphy, in which kites were employed to raise the transmitting 

 and receiving wires. 



It may be noted that Mr. W. A. Eddy, who experimented with the 

 aid of a small grant from the Hodgkins Fund, in 1894, at Bayonne, 

 New Jersey, was the first to demonstrate the adaptability of a modern 

 kite of his own device to the purposes of scientific investigation. 



A research on the properties of air in connection with the propa- 

 gation of sound, conducted by Professor A. G. Webster, of Clark 

 University, has been aided by the Hodgkins Fund. An instrument 

 invented by Professor Webster for use in this investigation gives 

 the physical measure of a sound, not only when constant, but also 

 when rapidly varying. It is expected that this research, which 

 includes experiments on the propagation, reflection, and diffraction 

 of sound, will furnish results of practical value in connection with the 

 Cjuestion of the acoustics of auditoriums. 



Professor William Hallock, of Columbia University, New York, 

 has been aided by the Fund in conducting a research having for its 

 object the analysis of a particle of air under the influence of artic- 

 ulate sounds. This investigation, which has been conducted largely 

 by means of instruments of Professor Hallock's invention, is ex- 

 pected to settle definitely the question of phase differences in the 

 components of complex sound. 



A Hodgkins research conducted by Doctor Louis Bevier, of 



