ving returned to earth after less than 100 miles' flight. Larger paper
balloons were now constructed, capable of carrying simple self-recording
instruments, also postcards, which became detached at regular intervals
by the burning away of slow match, and thus indicated the path of the
balloon. The next attempt was more ambitious, made with a goldbeaters'
skin balloon containing 4,000 cubic feet of gas, and carrying automatic
instruments of precision. This balloon fell in the Department of the
Yonne, and was returned to Paris with the instruments, which remained
uninjured, and which indicated that an altitude of 49,000 feet had
been reached, and a minimum temperature of -60 degrees encountered.
Yet larger balloons of the same nature were then experimented with in
Germany, as well as France.

A lack of public support has crippled the attempts of experimentalists
in this country, but abroad this method of aerial exploration continues
to gain favour.

Distinct from, and supplementing, the records obtained by free balloons,
manned or unmanned, are those to be gathered from an aerostat moored
to earth. It is here that the captive balloon has done good service to
meteorology, as we have shown, but still more so has the high-flying
kite. It must long have been recognised that instruments placed on or
near the ground are insufficient for meteorological purposes, and, as
far back as 1749, we find Dr. Wilson, of Glasgow, employing kites to
determine the upper currents, and to carry thermometers into higher
strata of the air. Franklin's kite and its application is matter of
history. Many since that period made experiments more or less in earnest
to obtain atmospheric observations by means of kites, but probably
the first in England, at least to obtain satisfactory results, was Mr.
Douglas Archibald, who, during the eighties, was successful in obtaining
valuable wind measurements, as also other results, including aerial
photographs, at varying altitudes up to 1,000 or 1,200 feet. From that
period the records of serious and systematic kite flying must be
sought in America. Mr. W. A. Eddy was one of the pioneers, and a very
serviceable tailless kite, in which the cross-bar is bowed away from the
wind, is his invention, and has been much in use. Mr. Eddy established
his kite at Blue Hill--the now famous kite observatory--and succeeded
in lifting self-recording meteorological instruments to considerable
heights. The superiority of read