Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1896 — KITE FOR WEATHER BUREAU. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

KITE FOR WEATHER BUREAU.

Experiments Being Made by Signal Service Officer Hulbert, Edward F. Hulbert, of Detroit, connected with the United States weather bureau, who has been making experiments in kite flying for the purpose of getting wind variations at great elevations, has succeeded in producing a kite twelve feet high, having 132 square feet of sail. The frame is so shaped and placed that it bends readily in one direction and is braced rigidly in the other, so that a- slightly concave shape is obtained. The weight of the kite is three pounds and eight ounces, so distributed that it is balanced equally from a common center. Th? apparatus, resembling two diamond-

shaped cambric boxes joined by slender rods, with no tail, has been given its first ‘test. A breeze of six miles an hour was blowing, but it flew the kite nearly overhead, the angle being between 75 and 50 degrees and carrying only two feet of slack in 600 feet of line. The strain on the cord was between 50 and 100 pounds, too great to be held in the hands. It is Mr Hulbert’s intention to fly the kite with piano wire, and it will then be used in any kind of wind, and recording instruments will be sent up.

SOMETHING NEW IN KITES.