Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 January 1892 — Mountain-Top Observatories. [ARTICLE]

Mountain-Top Observatories.

Of late the importance of getting high up in the air in order to study some phases of the weather has been specially recognized, and the number of mountain observatories constructed for that purpose is fast increasing. There are four such observatories in France, one being on the celebrated Pic du Midi. There is a meteorological observatory on Ben Nevis in Scotland, from which full and regular reports are issued, and a very important one on the mountain callfed the Sonnblick in Austria. In this country we have such an observatory on Pike’s Peak, at an elevation of more than fourteen thousand feet, and another on Mount Washington, sixty-three hundred feet high. The latter has been closed during the winter for several years, but there is now a good prospect that it will soon be in operation once more the year rouud. The loftiest of all observatories will be one that is to be constructed on Mont Blane.

The great importance of these lofty weather stations arises from the fact that in lowlands and valleys the heavy, dust-laden air, while yielding to the impulses communicated to it from the freer currents above, is so much subjected to the local influences of the surface with which it is in contact, that only with exceeding difficulty can any conclusions be found as to the general causes of weatbei changes. On mountain-tops one stands immersed in the free atmosphere, and can study the aerial motions and currents to better advantage. One great difficulty to be overcome is the severity of the winter season at great elevations. The observers have to face winds of terrific force, to contend with enormous falls of snow, and to endure intense cold. Electricity has partially solved the problem by enabling such instruments as the anemometer, which measures the velocity of the wind, to telegraph automatically their records to a station at the foot of the mountain. Mr. T. Proctor Hall has suggested an ingenious method by which the barometer on a mountain-top might also be made to telegraph down the changes in the pressure of the air, while a thermometer, in like manner, should transmit to the observer information as to the temperature prevailing thousands of feet above him. But whether men have to live all winter on the mountains, or succeed in getting the required records by automatic electric signals flashed from the exposed instruments, it is evident that such observations will in future be obtained, in one way or another, with increasing regularity, because only with their aid can the science oi the weather be perfected—Youth’s Companion.