Januauy 13, 190j.] 



SCIENCE. 



77 



temperatures to be determined at the succes- 

 sive heights readied, the place and time at 

 which the balloons fall indicating approxi- 

 mately the direction and velocity of the upper 

 currents. The 'aeronautical concourse' of the 

 St. Louis Exposition afforded an opportunity 

 to undertake these investigations in this coun- 

 try. Accordingly, the work was taken up by 

 Mr. A. Lawrence Rotch, director of the Blue 

 Hill Observatory, in cooperation with Col. J. 

 A. Ockerson, chief of the Department of Lib- 

 eral Arts at the Exposition, and a series of 

 vei-y satisfactory experiments has just been 

 completed. 



The balloons used in the experiments are 

 the closed rubber balloons devised by Dr. Ass- 

 mann, director of the Prussian Aeronautical 

 Observatory. These balloons are inflated with 

 about 100 cubic feet of hydrogen gas; they 

 expand in rising until they burst, and then 

 the attached parachute moderates the fall. 

 In some cases two balloons, coupled tandem, 

 were employed, and, as only one balloon bursts, 

 the other is borne slowly to the ground and 

 serves to attract attention. The instruments, 

 which were furnished by M. Teisserenc de 

 Bort, of Paris, record the temperature and 

 barometric pressure upon a smoked cylinder, 

 turned by clockwork; and the lightest of them 

 in its basket weighs about one and one half 

 pounds. A notice attached to each requests 

 the finder to pack the instrument carefully in 

 a box and return either to St. Louis or to Blue 

 Hill, with promise of a reward for the service. 



Owing to delays in obtaining the gas and 

 apparatus, the experiments were not begun 

 until the middle of September, during which 

 month four ascensions took place. All of the 

 balloons fell within a radius of fifteen miles, 

 about fifty miles east of St. Louis. Twice the 

 height of nine or ten miles was attained 

 where a temperature of 68° F. below zero was 

 recorded. These experiments were conducted 

 by Mr. S. P. Fergusson, of the Blue Hill Ob- 

 servatory staff. Another series of ten ascen- 

 sions was executed by Mr. H. TL. Clayton, 

 meteorologist at the Blue Hill Observatory, 

 during the last part of November and the first 

 days of December, mostly after sunset, in 

 order to avoid the possible effect of insolation. 



Fortunately, all these balloons were also re- 

 covered, though the stronger upper air cur- 

 rents carried them further from St. Louis, 

 three of them traveling more than two hun- 

 dred miles, and two, at least, with a speed 

 exceeding one hundred miles an hour, the 

 direction of every balloon being toward the 

 easterly semi-circle. Ten of the fourteen as- 

 censions furnished good records, and the re- 

 duction of the later ones reveals lower tem- 

 peratures than in September, for example, 

 72° below zero at the height of seven and 

 three quarters miles on November 25, and 

 76° below at six and one quarter miles on the 

 following day. 



The fact that all the balloons were recovered 

 indicates the excellent topographical situation 

 of St. Louis for despatching them, and Mr. 

 Rotch expects to make another series of as- 

 censions there this month, in order to obtain 

 the temperatures of the upper air in mid- 

 winter. 



SCTENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

 The Lavoisier medal of the Paris Academy 

 of Sciences has been awarded to Sir James 

 Dewar. 



The title of Correspondant de I'Ecole d'An- 

 thropologie de Paris has been conferred upon 

 Mr. George Grant MacCurdy of the Yale Uni- 

 versity Museum. 



Mr. Frederic Emory, chief of the Bureau 

 of Trade Relations of the Department of 

 State, has presented his resignation to take 

 effect on March 31. 



Dr. Horace Jayne has resigned the director- 

 ship of the Wistar Institute of the University 

 of Pennsylvania. 



Lord Kelvin has accepted the nomination of 

 the council for the presidency of the London 

 Faraday Society, in succession to Sir Joseph 

 Swan. 



Professor G. Sergi has been made president 

 for the International Congress of Psychology 

 to be held at Rome from April 26 to 30 of the 

 present year. 



Lieutenant-Colonel A. Keogh has been ap- 

 pointed director general of the British Army 

 Medical Service. 



