Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . me ofits hopes have been fulfilled; Italy,Spain, and Sweden have joined the con-ference, and much work has been doneby sea as well as by land. We must now describe methods bywhich meteorological instruments can besent on a journey in the air. The oldestmethod is the kite. In 1749 Wilsonused it to send up thermometers for themeasurement of temperatures; in 1883 Professor DouglasArchibald used it for finding the velocity of the wind; and since1894 the Amer
Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . me ofits hopes have been fulfilled; Italy,Spain, and Sweden have joined the con-ference, and much work has been doneby sea as well as by land. We must now describe methods bywhich meteorological instruments can besent on a journey in the air. The oldestmethod is the kite. In 1749 Wilsonused it to send up thermometers for themeasurement of temperatures; in 1883 Professor DouglasArchibald used it for finding the velocity of the wind; and since1894 the American observer Botch has used it largely for thework of his observatory. It was due to the success of Botchswork that the kite has since been used almost everywhere for thepurpose of atmospheric observation. Teisserenc cle Bort hasfollowed Botchs example; he has made excellent arrangementsfor sending up kites and balloons at Trappes near Paris, and thishas been done at his own expense and with little help from out-side. Professor Hergesell tried to induce the provincial authori-ties to provide him with funds; but there happened to be no. FlG. 158.—A wicker workbasket with instrumentsfor a recording balloon. 256 AIRSHIPS PAST AND PRESENT. available surplus in the exchequer. Still kite ascents have beenregularly made for these purposes in Strassburg since 1896,Professor Assmann succeeded in erecting an observatory on alarge scale, and started on this work as soon as the sum ofd£2,000 had been voted for the purpose. The building beganon April 1st, 1899, and on October 1st of the same year it waspossible to make the first ascents with kites and balloons. Asite was chosen at Tegel in the north of Berlin, because theBalloon Corps was stationed there, and their help was thoughtlikely to be useful, seeing that the preparation of the gas and the inflation of the balloon wouldbe a difficult matter for the limitedstaff of the observatory. More-over, the Balloon Corps might, onthe other
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