DECEMBER 23, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



87; 



over a considerable territory, were tele- 

 graphed to a central office for the purpose 

 of forecasting the weather, it must be con- 

 fessed that practically no progress has 

 been realized in this art, for, while much 

 has been done to complete and extend the 

 area under observation by the creation 

 of a finer and larger network of stations, 

 and while the transmission of the obser- 

 vations and the dissemination of the fore- 

 casts based on them have been accelerated, 

 the methods employed in formulating the 

 forecasts are essentially those empirical 

 rules which w'ere adopted at the incep- 

 tion of the work. A recent extension of 

 the field of observation over the ocean, 

 by Avireless telegraphy, may here be men- 

 tioned as offering advantages to certain 

 countries; for example, the reports now 

 being received in England from steamers 

 in mid- Atlantic give information about the 

 approaching weather conditions— subject, 

 of course, to any subsequent changes— long 

 before they reach the western shores of 

 the British Isles. Nevertheless, the data 

 obtained still relate mainly to the lowest 

 strata of the atmosphere and we are 

 ignorant of the conditions that prevail at 

 the height of a mile or two both during 

 storms and in fine weather. Until these are 

 known and their sequence in the upper and 

 lo-\A'er atmosphere has been established by 

 careful investigation, our weather fore- 

 casts based on synoptic observations will 

 continue to be largely empirical. However, 

 it should be remembered that since weather 

 predictions constitute the aspect of meteor- 

 ology which most appeals to mankind, the 

 incentive to improve them is the most likely 

 to stimulate the investigations needed. 

 Therefore, it is the problems of dynamic 

 meteorology that now press for solution, 

 and to achieve this purpose we must not 

 only look upward, but also elevate our- 

 selves, or cur instruments, into the higher 

 regions. 



This mode of study belongs entirely to 

 the last half-centiiry, for only within that 

 period has a systematic attempt been made 

 to ascertain the conditions prevailing in 

 the upper air. To the credit of the United 

 States it should be remembered that the 

 tirst post of observation upon a mountain 

 peak w-as one established in 1871 upon 

 Mount Washington, in New Hampshire, 

 and this was soon followed by the highest 

 observatory in the world, maintained dur- 

 ing fifteen years upon the summit of 

 Pike's Peak in Colorado. The observatory 

 upon the Puy de Dome in France, opened 

 in 1876, was the first mountain station in 

 Europe to be equipped with self-recording 

 instruments. A large amount of data has 

 been collected at these stations which illus- 

 trate chiefly the climatology of the moun- 

 tainous regions, for what we obtain in this 

 way still pertains to the earth and, as is now 

 admitted, does not represent the conditions 

 prevailing at an equal height in the free 

 air. During the present century, the or- 

 ganized efforts which have been made to 

 explore the ocean of air above ixs have 

 already resulted in a great increase of 

 knowledge respecting the atmosphere as a 

 whole. This task of ascertaining the con- 

 ditions of the free air was resumed in 1888, 

 with balloon ascents in Germany, in which 

 special precautions were taken to obtain 

 accurate temperatures, previous observa- 

 tions in balloons leaving much to be desired 

 in this respect. In France, about 1892, 

 it was demonstrated that by means of 

 balloons carrying only self- recording in- 

 struments, meteorological information 

 might be acquired at heights far greater 

 than those to which a human being can 

 hope to ascend and live. The use of the 

 so-called 'hallons-sondes,' liberated and 

 abandoned to their fate, with the expecta- 

 tion that when they fall to the ground 

 the records will be recovered, was soon 

 adopted in Germany and has since spread 



