November 20, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



659 



of Kalocsa, they had come to the conclu- 

 sion that in no single case could a magnetic 

 storm be with certainty associated with any 

 given prominence, and great disturbances 

 had occurred without any answering swing 

 of the needles. It was, they thought, the 

 general disturbance of the sun and his sur- 

 roundings which affected the earth's mag- 

 netism, and not any particular manifesta- 

 tion of spot or prominence. 



The important subject of the investiga- 

 tion of the upper atmosphere was opened for 

 consideration by j\Ir. W. H. Dines' report of 

 the joint committee of the Association and 

 Meteorological Society on obtaining me- 

 teorological observations with kites, which 

 were flown from a steamer off the west 

 coast of Scotland during the past summer. 

 Owing to the slowness of the vessel char- 

 tered and the bad weather, the experiments 

 were not very successful, 20 records being 

 obtained in 38 flights, with a maximum 

 height of only 6,000 feet. In his sixth 

 report upon meteorological kite-flying at 

 Blue Hill, the writer stated that during the 

 years 1901-2 the average height reached in 

 the 23 flights was 7,900 feet, with a maxi- 

 mum of 14,060 feet. Some deductions 

 concerning the decrease of temperature in 

 cyclones and anti-cyclones were given and 

 the project of exploring the atmosphere in 

 the tropics by kites flown from a steamer 

 was explained, as is outlined in Science, 

 Vol. XVII., pp. 178-9. 



General Rykatcheff described experi- 

 ments of raising kites in a calm from a 

 Russian warship, steaming twelve knots. 

 M. Teisserene de Bort traced the circula- 

 tion of the air around barometric depres- 

 sions, as evinced by the trajectories of his 

 balloons, and from experiences with kites 

 in Denmark he suggested that the meteoro- 

 graphs carried by them should etch their 

 records on copper, so that the^e might be 

 preserved in case the instruments fell into 

 the water. Professor Ilergesell gave a re- 



sume of the operations of the International 

 Committee for Scientific Aeronautics since 

 its foundation in 1896. For several years 

 monthly ascensions of balloons have been 

 conducted in various parts of Europe, but 

 permanent stations, where kite flights can 

 be nmde daily, are desired. A kite station 

 was nuiintained during nine months in Den- 

 mark and, since the first of the year, kites, 

 or captive balloons, have been sent up each 

 morning from Berlin and kites less regu- 

 larly from Hamburg. The monthly ob- 

 servations are collected by Professor Iler- 

 gesell and published at the expense of the 

 (ierman government. The establishment 

 of an aeronautical observatory in the Brit- 

 ish Isles would be of great importance for 

 these studies. Professor A. Schuster in- 

 sisted upon the value of the information that 

 could be derived from kites, and although 

 unmanned balloons can attain the greatest 

 altitudes, he hoped that balloons carrjnng 

 aeronauts would be included in the pro- 

 gram of work, since, with them, samples of 

 air for analysis could be collected from the 

 high strata of the atmosphere and personal 

 observations made of various phenomena. 

 He considered it most important for Eng- 

 land to take a proper part in these investi- 

 gations by placing the Meteorological Office 

 on an altogether different basis, and a dis- 

 cussion of the question at the present time, 

 when so many distinguished foreigners 

 testified as to its importance, appeared ap- 

 prcpriate. Professor H. H. Turner ex- 

 pressed the same opinion and declared that 

 he knew of no scheme more deserving of 

 government support than is the exploration 

 of the upper air by means of kites. 



Professor Ilildebrandsson announced 

 that the discussion of the cloud observa- 

 tions which had been made simultaneously 

 in various parts of the world indicated the 

 f( llcwini; to be the circulation of the 

 atmrsphere at different heights: (1) 

 Above the thermic equator and the equa- 



