HALL we go to Eu- air which the world has yet produced. Yes, says H. Helm Clayton, America's most distinguished meteorologist, who has for sixteen years made a careful study of upper air currents. Not only may we go, taking advantage of what has become known to meteorologists as "the great highway of the air," but we may return, for this highway is not a one way route but issues return tickets to all who will study its schedules and take advantage of them with the proper equipment. The rails of this vast circuit road of the upper air are laid, so to speak, even the motive power is furnished; the knowledge of the schedules has been furnished us by Professor Clayton and other careful scientific observers; the only remaining need is the safe and sure equipment for reaching this upper air current and staying in it until the desired point is reached, and men daring enough to trust their lives to the first voyage and thus point the, way to thousands of eager followers. In other words, a balloon several miles high at the latitude of Boston, finds a wind blowing from west to east which is as dependable as the motion of the earth itself, which will whisk it across 3,000 miles of sea at a rate of speed far Copyright, 1909, by Technical World Company. 3 exceeding that of the swiftest ocean liner. At a point near the equator it would find an equally steady return current which would waft it at a like speed back to America. With a dirigible, capable of seeking favorable local winds or proceeding against moderately unfavorable ones to traverse the space from England to the Canary Islands or from Key West to Boston it can be seen that a circuit would be established which would have great possibilities, even to the revolutionizing of the passenger service between this country and Europe. TYPICAL BOX KITE. These kites are much used for testing air currents. Why not? Hundreds of men are always eager to reach London, or Paris, or Berlin, in the briefest possible time. They gladly pay increased passenger money for a voyage on the swiftest steamships though these cut the schedules of their sister ships but a few hours at best, in what is practically six days. Show them a route which has been proved feasible by which they can do it in three and you will not lack passengers, no matter what the price. We have the balloons, or can have them for the making. Count Zeppelin's airship wanders about at the will of its navigator over the principalities of Europe, defying contrary winds, remaining in the air for days and covering distances of half a thousand miles with ease. The Pommern and L'Isle de France traveled from St. Louis to the Atlantic coast with ease and certainty in the great balloon race not long ago, stopping then only because their navigators knew it was unwise to tempt the ocean itself unequipped for it. The science of ballooning is indeed in but its infancy, but enough is known, proven, and has been done to assure us that balloons can be built that will take a score of men, perhaps a hundred, into these air currents and keep them high in the swift moving wind until it has had time to transport them across the Atlantic. EXPERIMENTAL BALLOON. Scientists have long been testing and charting wind currents by means of such balloons. We may be sure of the air currents. The air above the poles is undoubtedly quiescent, except for variable surface winds. On the contrary the air above the equator at a height of a hundred miles or So, whirls from east to west with vast velocity. This has been proved primarily by volcanic dust which at times of eruption has been known to pass half around the globe in a few hours. This is no doubt the main movement. At the height of a few miles in a region of the atmosphere perfectly available to balloons it is a steady, strong, dependable current, the mother of the trade winds upon which the sailing ships of the centuries have depended. It is probable that the currents in the oppo |